Multiple threads in a python script called from the command line

Question

On a webserver i am currently implementing in web.py , I am using the following approach to perform an action periodically:

import threading    

def periodicAction():
    # do something
    threading.Timer(time_interval, periodicAction).start() # when finished, wait and then start same function in a new thread

periodicAction() # start the method

While it works fine (meaning it does what it is supposed to do), I still have the problem, that when I test it from the command line, the console gets unresponsive (i can still type, but it has no affect, even ctrl + c does not stop the program). It this the normal behaviour or am I doing something wrong?

Armin Rigo · Accepted Answer · 2014-01-27 11:41:48Z

2

The background thread is still running, so if the main thread finishes, it will wait -- forever, in this case. (It's a side-effect of how it waits that Ctrl-C doesn't work.) If you don't want this, you can call setDaemon(True), which makes the thread a "daemon" -- meaning that it will be forcefully closed when the main thread finishes:

def periodicAction():
    print "do something"
    t = threading.Timer(1.0, periodicAction)
    t.setDaemon(True)
    t.start()

answered Jan 27, 2014 at 11:41

Armin Rigo

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