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Stopping eval code dinamically on event fired [duplicate]

What's the proper way to tell a looping thread to stop looping?
I have a fairly simple program that pings a specified host in a separate threading.Thread class. In this class it sleeps 60 seconds, the runs again until the application quits.
I'd like to implement a 'Stop' button in my wx.Frame to ask the looping thread to stop. It doesn't need to end the thread right away, it can just stop looping once it wakes up.
Here is my threading class (note: I haven't implemented looping yet, but it would likely fall under the run method in PingAssets)
class PingAssets(threading.Thread):
def __init__(self, threadNum, asset, window):
threading.Thread.__init__(self)
self.threadNum = threadNum
self.window = window
self.asset = asset
def run(self):
config = controller.getConfig()
fmt = config['timefmt']
start_time = datetime.now().strftime(fmt)
try:
if onlinecheck.check_status(self.asset):
status = "online"
else:
status = "offline"
except socket.gaierror:
status = "an invalid asset tag."
msg =("{}: {} is {}. \n".format(start_time, self.asset, status))
wx.CallAfter(self.window.Logger, msg)
And in my wxPyhton Frame I have this function called from a Start button:
def CheckAsset(self, asset):
self.count += 1
thread = PingAssets(self.count, asset, self)
self.threads.append(thread)
thread.start()

Threaded stoppable function
Instead of subclassing threading.Thread, one can modify the function to allow
stopping by a flag.
We need an object, accessible to running function, to which we set the flag to stop running.
We can use threading.currentThread() object.
import threading
import time
def doit(arg):
t = threading.currentThread()
while getattr(t, "do_run", True):
print ("working on %s" % arg)
time.sleep(1)
print("Stopping as you wish.")
def main():
t = threading.Thread(target=doit, args=("task",))
t.start()
time.sleep(5)
t.do_run = False
if __name__ == "__main__":
main()
The trick is, that the running thread can have attached additional properties. The solution builds
on assumptions:
the thread has a property "do_run" with default value True
driving parent process can assign to started thread the property "do_run" to False.
Running the code, we get following output:
$ python stopthread.py
working on task
working on task
working on task
working on task
working on task
Stopping as you wish.
Pill to kill - using Event
Other alternative is to use threading.Event as function argument. It is by
default False, but external process can "set it" (to True) and function can
learn about it using wait(timeout) function.
We can wait with zero timeout, but we can also use it as the sleeping timer (used below).
def doit(stop_event, arg):
while not stop_event.wait(1):
print ("working on %s" % arg)
print("Stopping as you wish.")
def main():
pill2kill = threading.Event()
t = threading.Thread(target=doit, args=(pill2kill, "task"))
t.start()
time.sleep(5)
pill2kill.set()
t.join()
Edit: I tried this in Python 3.6. stop_event.wait() blocks the event (and so the while loop) until release. It does not return a boolean value. Using stop_event.is_set() works instead.
Stopping multiple threads with one pill
Advantage of pill to kill is better seen, if we have to stop multiple threads
at once, as one pill will work for all.
The doit will not change at all, only the main handles the threads a bit differently.
def main():
pill2kill = threading.Event()
tasks = ["task ONE", "task TWO", "task THREE"]
def thread_gen(pill2kill, tasks):
for task in tasks:
t = threading.Thread(target=doit, args=(pill2kill, task))
yield t
threads = list(thread_gen(pill2kill, tasks))
for thread in threads:
thread.start()
time.sleep(5)
pill2kill.set()
for thread in threads:
thread.join()

This has been asked before on Stack. See the following links:
Is there any way to kill a Thread in Python?
Stopping a thread after a certain amount of time
Basically you just need to set up the thread with a stop function that sets a sentinel value that the thread will check. In your case, you'll have the something in your loop check the sentinel value to see if it's changed and if it has, the loop can break and the thread can die.

I read the other questions on Stack but I was still a little confused on communicating across classes. Here is how I approached it:
I use a list to hold all my threads in the __init__ method of my wxFrame class: self.threads = []
As recommended in How to stop a looping thread in Python? I use a signal in my thread class which is set to True when initializing the threading class.
class PingAssets(threading.Thread):
def __init__(self, threadNum, asset, window):
threading.Thread.__init__(self)
self.threadNum = threadNum
self.window = window
self.asset = asset
self.signal = True
def run(self):
while self.signal:
do_stuff()
sleep()
and I can stop these threads by iterating over my threads:
def OnStop(self, e):
for t in self.threads:
t.signal = False

I had a different approach. I've sub-classed a Thread class and in the constructor I've created an Event object. Then I've written custom join() method, which first sets this event and then calls a parent's version of itself.
Here is my class, I'm using for serial port communication in wxPython app:
import wx, threading, serial, Events, Queue
class PumpThread(threading.Thread):
def __init__ (self, port, queue, parent):
super(PumpThread, self).__init__()
self.port = port
self.queue = queue
self.parent = parent
self.serial = serial.Serial()
self.serial.port = self.port
self.serial.timeout = 0.5
self.serial.baudrate = 9600
self.serial.parity = 'N'
self.stopRequest = threading.Event()
def run (self):
try:
self.serial.open()
except Exception, ex:
print ("[ERROR]\tUnable to open port {}".format(self.port))
print ("[ERROR]\t{}\n\n{}".format(ex.message, ex.traceback))
self.stopRequest.set()
else:
print ("[INFO]\tListening port {}".format(self.port))
self.serial.write("FLOW?\r")
while not self.stopRequest.isSet():
msg = ''
if not self.queue.empty():
try:
command = self.queue.get()
self.serial.write(command)
except Queue.Empty:
continue
while self.serial.inWaiting():
char = self.serial.read(1)
if '\r' in char and len(msg) > 1:
char = ''
#~ print('[DATA]\t{}'.format(msg))
event = Events.PumpDataEvent(Events.SERIALRX, wx.ID_ANY, msg)
wx.PostEvent(self.parent, event)
msg = ''
break
msg += char
self.serial.close()
def join (self, timeout=None):
self.stopRequest.set()
super(PumpThread, self).join(timeout)
def SetPort (self, serial):
self.serial = serial
def Write (self, msg):
if self.serial.is_open:
self.queue.put(msg)
else:
print("[ERROR]\tPort {} is not open!".format(self.port))
def Stop(self):
if self.isAlive():
self.join()
The Queue is used for sending messages to the port and main loop takes responses back. I've used no serial.readline() method, because of different end-line char, and I have found the usage of io classes to be too much fuss.

Depends on what you run in that thread.
If that's your code, then you can implement a stop condition (see other answers).
However, if what you want is to run someone else's code, then you should fork and start a process. Like this:
import multiprocessing
proc = multiprocessing.Process(target=your_proc_function, args=())
proc.start()
now, whenever you want to stop that process, send it a SIGTERM like this:
proc.terminate()
proc.join()
And it's not slow: fractions of a second.
Enjoy :)

My solution is:
import threading, time
def a():
t = threading.currentThread()
while getattr(t, "do_run", True):
print('Do something')
time.sleep(1)
def getThreadByName(name):
threads = threading.enumerate() #Threads list
for thread in threads:
if thread.name == name:
return thread
threading.Thread(target=a, name='228').start() #Init thread
t = getThreadByName('228') #Get thread by name
time.sleep(5)
t.do_run = False #Signal to stop thread
t.join()

I find it useful to have a class, derived from threading.Thread, to encapsulate my thread functionality. You simply provide your own main loop in an overridden version of run() in this class. Calling start() arranges for the object’s run() method to be invoked in a separate thread.
Inside the main loop, periodically check whether a threading.Event has been set. Such an event is thread-safe.
Inside this class, you have your own join() method that sets the stop event object before calling the join() method of the base class. It can optionally take a time value to pass to the base class's join() method to ensure your thread is terminated in a short amount of time.
import threading
import time
class MyThread(threading.Thread):
def __init__(self, sleep_time=0.1):
self._stop_event = threading.Event()
self._sleep_time = sleep_time
"""call base class constructor"""
super().__init__()
def run(self):
"""main control loop"""
while not self._stop_event.isSet():
#do work
print("hi")
self._stop_event.wait(self._sleep_time)
def join(self, timeout=None):
"""set stop event and join within a given time period"""
self._stop_event.set()
super().join(timeout)
if __name__ == "__main__":
t = MyThread()
t.start()
time.sleep(5)
t.join(1) #wait 1s max
Having a small sleep inside the main loop before checking the threading.Event is less CPU intensive than looping continuously. You can have a default sleep time (e.g. 0.1s), but you can also pass the value in the constructor.

Sometimes you don't have control over the running target. In those cases you can use signal.pthread_kill to send a stop signal.
from signal import pthread_kill, SIGTSTP
from threading import Thread
from itertools import count
from time import sleep
def target():
for num in count():
print(num)
sleep(1)
thread = Thread(target=target)
thread.start()
sleep(5)
pthread_kill(thread.ident, SIGTSTP)
result
0
1
2
3
4
[14]+ Stopped

Python threads, how do Event and Queue work together?

I was talking with my friend,after looking at example from Beasley's book
class ActorExit(Exception):
pass
class Actor:
def __init__(self):
self._mailbox = Queue()
def send(self, msg):
self._mailbox.put(msg)
def recv(self):
msg = self._mailbox.get()
if msg is ActorExit:
raise ActorExit()
return msg
def close(self):
self.send(ActorExit)
def start(self):
self._terminated = Event()
t = Thread(target=self._bootstrap)
t.daemon = True
t.start()
def _bootstrap(self):
try:
self.run()
except ActorExit:
pass
finally:
self._terminated.set()
def join(self):
self._terminated.wait()
def run(self):
while True:
msg = self.recv()
class PrintActor(Actor):
def run(self):
while True:
msg = self.recv()
print('Got:', msg)
My friend argues that sole purpose of Event is to block the main thread until the other thread performs set operation.
Is that true?
How can we watch thread execution?

Python threads, how do Event and Queue work together?
They don't. You can use Events without queues and queues without Events, there's no dependency on each other. Your example just happens to use both.
My friend argues that sole purpose of Event is to block the main thread until the other thread performs set operation. Is that true?
Calling .wait() on an Event-object will block any calling thread until the internal flag is .set().
If you look at the source for Event, you'll find that Events just consist of a Condition variable with a lock and a boolean flag + methods to handle and communicate (to waiting threads) state changes of that flag.
class Event:
"""Class implementing event objects.
Events manage a flag that can be set to true with the set() method and reset
to false with the clear() method. The wait() method blocks until the flag is
true. The flag is initially false.
"""
def __init__(self):
self._cond = Condition(Lock())
self._flag = False
...
How can we watch thread execution?
A simple method would be to apply some sort of utility function that prints out what you're interested in, for example:
def print_info(info=""):
"""Print calling function's name and thread with optional info-text."""
calling_func = sys._getframe(1).f_code.co_name
thread_name = threading.current_thread().getName()
print(f"<{thread_name}, {calling_func}> {info}", flush=True)
Another possibility would be to use logging like in this answer.
Not sure what Beazly wanted to demonstrate with the code you showed, but it deems a little over-engineered to me for this simple task. Involving Events here on top is unnecessary when you already use a queue. You can initialize thread termination by passing a sentinel-value.
Here's a simplified version of your example with sentinel ('STOP') and some info-prints with print_info from above:
import sys
import time
import threading
from queue import Queue
class Actor(threading.Thread):
def __init__(self):
super().__init__(target=self.run)
self.queue = Queue()
def send(self, msg):
self.queue.put(msg)
print_info(f"sent: {msg}") # DEBUG
def close(self):
print_info() # DEBUG
self.send('STOP')
def run(self):
for msg in iter(self.queue.get, 'STOP'):
pass
class PrintActor(Actor):
def run(self):
for msg in iter(self.queue.get, 'STOP'):
print_info(f"got: {msg}") # DEBUG
if __name__ == '__main__':
pa = PrintActor()
pa.start()
pa.send("Hello")
time.sleep(2)
pa.send("...World!")
time.sleep(2)
pa.close()
pa.join()
Output:
<MainThread, send> sent: Hello
<Thread-1, run> got: Hello
<MainThread, send> sent: ...World!
<Thread-1, run> got: ...World!
<MainThread, close>
<MainThread, send> sent: STOP

python picamera, keyboard ctrl+c/sigint not caught

From the pycamera docs I took the example for fast capture and processing and added a sigint event handler to catch the keyboard interrupt:
import io
import time
import threading
import picamera
# Create a pool of image processors
done = False
lock = threading.Lock()
pool = []
def signal_handler(signal, frame):
global done
print 'You pressed Ctrl+C!'
done=True
sys.exit()
signal.signal(signal.SIGINT, signal_handler)
class ImageProcessor(threading.Thread):
def __init__(self):
super(ImageProcessor, self).__init__()
self.stream = io.BytesIO()
self.event = threading.Event()
self.terminated = False
self.daemon=True;
self.start()
def run(self):
# This method runs in a separate thread
global done
while not self.terminated:
# Wait for an image to be written to the stream
if self.event.wait(1):
try:
self.stream.seek(0)
# Read the image and do some processing on it
#Image.open(self.stream)
#...
#...
# Set done to True if you want the script to terminate
# at some point
#done=True
finally:
# Reset the stream and event
self.stream.seek(0)
self.stream.truncate()
self.event.clear()
# Return ourselves to the pool
with lock:
pool.append(self)
def streams():
while not done:
with lock:
if pool:
processor = pool.pop()
else:
processor = None
if processor:
yield processor.stream
processor.event.set()
else:
# When the pool is starved, wait a while for it to refill
time.sleep(0.1)
with picamera.PiCamera() as camera:
pool = [ImageProcessor() for i in range(4)]
camera.resolution = (640, 480)
camera.framerate = 30
camera.start_preview()
time.sleep(2)
camera.capture_sequence(streams(), use_video_port=True)
# Shut down the processors in an orderly fashion
while pool:
with lock:
processor = pool.pop()
processor.terminated = True
processor.join()
but the interrupt signal is never caught.
Until the camera.capture_sequence(streams(), use_video_port=True) runs the signal is caught, after capture_sequence is started the signal handler is not called.
I'm new to python so maybe the answer is simple. What am i doing wrong in here?
EDIT:
If i remove the following code the signal is caught:
yield processor.stream

The problem there is that you are using thread.join(), it block the main thread,which means your program have to wait until that thread you joined finishes to continue.
The signals will always be caught by the main process, because it's the one that receives the signals, it's the process that has threads.
There are plenty of answer about how to deal with main thread and CTRL+C,and i give you three options,
First,add timeout to join() call:
thread1.join(60) detail here
Second, start a new process to deal with signal to kill the program.
class Watcher():
def __init__(self):
self.child = os.fork()
if self.child == 0:
return
else:
self.watch()
def watch(self):
try:
os.wait()
except KeyboardInterrupt:
self.kill()
sys.exit()
def kill(self):
try:
os.kill(self.child, signal.SIGKILL)
except OSError:
pass
start a Watcher before you start work thread,like
def main():
init()
Watcher()
start_your_thread1()
start_your_thread2()
start_your_thread3()
The final,your original way,the complicate Producer and Consumer way.
just delete the final join(),and add some task for the main thread.
i prefer the second option,it's easy use,and solves two problems with multithreaded programs in Python, (1) a signal might be delivered to any thread (which is just a malfeature) and (2) if the thread that gets the signal is waiting, the signal is ignored (which is a bug).
More detail about the Watcher is in Appendix A of the book The Little Book of Semaphores

In your code, the done variable is a global variable.
So, whenever you want to modify it inside a function, you need to use the keyword global, or else it become a local variable.
You should fix your code like this:
import signal
import sys
done = False
def signal_handler(signal, frame):
global done
print('You pressed Ctrl+C!')
done = True
sys.exit()
signal.signal(signal.SIGINT, signal_handler)

killing a thread in python before its done [duplicate]

This question already has answers here:
Is there any way to kill a Thread?
(31 answers)
Closed 8 years ago.
I did a little search and found out there is no way to kill a thread in python, but how would one solve a problem like me ?
I have a function that sets X to True for one hour and after that it sets it back to False.
sometimes the program finishes less than the needed hour, but the thread is still running and make garbage in memory.
def enableX():
self.x=True
sleep(3600)
self.x=False
def function1():
self.enableXThread=Thread(target=self.enableX)
self.enableXThread.start()
any idea ? how I can kill enbableXThread when the program terminates no matter if the thread is done or not ?

how I can kill enbableXThread when the program terminates
If the thread does not have any cleanup to do, make it a daemon thread by setting enableXThread.daemon to True. This must be done before starting the thread:
self.enableXThread = Thread(target=self.enableX)
self.enableXThread.daemon = True
self.enableXThread.start()
Otherwise, use an exit flag (a global variable that the threads check to see whether they should exit) or an Event handler.
You might also considering using a signal for this, as this may be simpler than threading; you can simply set an alarm for an hour and have the handler reset the variable. If your process ends before the alarm goes off, nothing happens. Note that this isn't available on Windows.
import signal
X = False
def handle_alarm(signum, frame):
global X
X = False
signal.signal(signal.SIGALRM, handle_alarm)
def set_X_true_then_false_later(secs=3600):
global X
X = True
signal.alarm(secs)

It looks like your problem has already been solved using kindall's suggestions, but if you ever are interested in being able to terminate a thread from another one, the following might be of interest to you.
If you do not mind your code running about ten times slower, you can use the Thread2 class implemented below. An example follows that shows how calling the new stop method should kill the thread on the next bytecode instruction.
import threading
import sys
class StopThread(StopIteration): pass
threading.SystemExit = SystemExit, StopThread
class Thread2(threading.Thread):
def stop(self):
self.__stop = True
def _bootstrap(self):
if threading._trace_hook is not None:
raise ValueError('Cannot run thread with tracing!')
self.__stop = False
sys.settrace(self.__trace)
super()._bootstrap()
def __trace(self, frame, event, arg):
if self.__stop:
raise StopThread()
return self.__trace
class Thread3(threading.Thread):
def _bootstrap(self, stop_thread=False):
def stop():
nonlocal stop_thread
stop_thread = True
self.stop = stop
def tracer(*_):
if stop_thread:
raise StopThread()
return tracer
sys.settrace(tracer)
super()._bootstrap()
################################################################################
import time
def main():
test = Thread2(target=printer)
test.start()
time.sleep(1)
test.stop()
test.join()
def printer():
while True:
print(time.time() % 1)
time.sleep(0.1)
if __name__ == '__main__':
main()
The Thread3 class appears to run code approximately 33% faster than the Thread2 class.

Non-blocking class in python (detached Thread)

I'm trying to create a kind of non-blocking class in python, but I'm not sure how.
I'd like a class to be a thread itself, detached from the main thread so other threads can interact with it.
In a little example:
#!/usr/bin/python2.4
import threading
import time
class Sample(threading.Thread):
def __init__(self):
super(Sample, self).__init__()
self.status = 1
self.stop = False
def run(self):
while not(self.stop):
pass
def getStatus(self):
return self.status
def setStatus(self, status):
self.status = status
def test(self):
while self.status != 0:
time.sleep(2)
#main
sample = Sample()
sample.start()
sample.test()
sample.setStatus(0)
sample.stop()
What I'd like is having the "sample" instance running as a separate thread (detached from the main one) so, in the example, when the main thread reaches sample.test(), sample (and only "sample") would go to sleep for 2 seconds. In the meanwhile, the main thread would continue its execution and set sample's status to 0. When after the 2 seconds "sample" wakes up it would see the status=0 and exit the while loop.
The problem is that if I do this, the line sample.setStatus(0) is never reached (creating an infinite loop). I have named the threads, and it turns out that by doing this, test() is run by the main thread.
I guess I don't get the threading in python that well...
Thank you in advance

The object's run() method is what executes in a separate thread. When you call sample.test(), that executes in the main thread, so you get your infinite loop.

Perhaps something like this?
import threading
import time
class Sample(threading.Thread):
def __init__(self):
super(Sample, self).__init__()
self.stop = False
def run(self):
while not(self.stop):
print('hi')
time.sleep(.1)
def test(self):
print('testing...')
time.sleep(2)
#main
sample = Sample()
sample.start() # Initiates second thread which calls sample.run()
sample.test() # Main thread calls sample.test
sample.stop=True # Main thread sets sample.stop
sample.join() # Main thread waits for second thread to finish