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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

Is it possible to prevent python from termination until block ends?

Basically, I'm curious if it's possible to execute a block of python code "atomically" without being interrupted by a signal.
For instance, I want to perform operations in a loop, let's say:
for i in range(100):
do_stuff(1)
do_stuff(2)
do_stuff(3)
But I want to finish all of three do_stuff(1), do_stuff(2), do_stuff(3) if do_stuff(1) managed to start. Script should ignore CTRL+C, finish these three instructions and then terminate if SIGINT happened. All of 100 iterations does not have to be executed.
I believe it could be done with a custom signal handler
import signal
def handler(signum, frame):
# wait for the loop iteration finish and exit
signal.signal(signal.SIGINT, handler)
threads and synchronization but I have no idea how to implement it.
Is it possible?
If it is, can it be done nicely? With some kind of a context manager, for example?
for i in range(100):
with atomic_execution():
do_stuff(1)
do_stuff(2)
do_stuff(3)
Edit: in the meantime I created this:
import threading
import sys
import signal
class atomic_execution:
started = 0
execution_in_progress = threading.Lock()
def __enter__(self):
atomic_execution.execution_in_progress.acquire()
def __exit__(self, type, value, traceback):
atomic_execution.execution_in_progress.release()
def handler(signum, frame):
atomic_execution.execution_in_progress.acquire()
sys.exit(0)
signal.signal(signal.SIGINT, handler)
while True:
with atomic_execution():
print(1)
print(2)
print(3)
I am not sure if it's good, though.

This is the basic idea:
import signal
import time
stop = False
def sighandler(*unused):
global stop
print('signal caught')
stop = True
def main():
for i in range(10):
print('a')
time.sleep(0.5)
print('b')
time.sleep(0.5)
print('c')
time.sleep(0.5)
print()
if stop:
print('STOP')
break
if __name__ == '__main__':
signal.signal(signal.SIGINT, sighandler)
main()
I think it is not difficult to make an context manager for this purpose:
on enter:
save the current signal handler
install own handler setting a flag like in the example above
on exit:
restore the original signal handler
exit if the flag was set
But I do not like the idea, because you want to install the handler once before the loop and test the flag many times at each iteration.

how can stop only thread but program should keep running in python

import time
import threading
class Check(threading.Thread):
def __init__(self):
self.stopped = False
threading.Thread.__init__(self)
def run(self):
i = 0
while not self.stopped:
time.sleep(1)
i = i + 1
print(i)
if(i==5):
self.stopped = True
inst = Check()
inst.start()

You have to set up your own mechanism for stopping a thread--Python doesn't have a built-in way to do it. This is actually a common problem among many languages, not just Python.
import time
import threading
class Check(threading.Thread):
def __init__(self):
threading.Thread.__init__(self)
# An event can be useful here, though a simple boolean works too since
# assignment is atomic in Python.
self.stop_event = threading.Event()
def run(self):
i = 0
while not self.stop_event.is_set():
time.sleep(1)
i = i + 1
print(i)
if(i==5):
self.stopped = True
def stop(self):
# Tell the thread to stop...
self.stop_event.set()
# Wait for the thread to stop
self.join()
inst = Check()
inst.start()
# Do stuff...
time.sleep(1)
inst.stop()
# Thread has stopped, but the main thread is still running...
print("I'm still here!")
Here I use an event to signal whether or not the thread should stop. We add a stop method to signal the event and then wait for the thread to finish processing before continuing. This is very simplistic, but hopefully it gives you the idea of the kind of strategy you can take. It gets much more complicated if you want to handle error conditions like being informed if an error occurred in the run() method or if the body of the run() method is taking too long, etc.

How can I end an infinite loop with socket operations inside after finishing current iteration?

I have an infinite loop in which there are operations that are mandatory to be completely executed before exiting the loop. Namely, I am using the socket library for connecting to an external device and I need to wait the read instructions to be finished before interrupting the loop.
I have tried using a signal handler (like in this question) for raising a flag when a Keyboard interrupt is detected.
Current code:
import videosensor
import signal
def signal_handler(signal, frame):
"""Raises a flag when a keyboard interrupt is raised."""
global interrupted
interrupted = True
if __name__ == '__main__':
camera = videosensor.VideoSensor(filename)
interrupted = False
signal.signal(signal.SIGINT, signal_handler)
while not interrupted:
location = camera.get_register()
#...
#More irrelevant stuff is executed.
#...
time.sleep(0.01)
#This code has to be executed after exiting while loop
camera_shutdown(camera)
In the previous code, videosensor.VideoSensor is a class containing socket operations for getting data from an external device. The get_register() method used in the main routine is the following:
def get_register(self):
"""Read the content of the specified register.
"""
#Do some stuff
value = socket.recv(2048)
return value
The problem:
I wanted the while loop to be continually executed until the user pressed a key or used the Keyboard Interrupt, but after the current iteration was finished. Instead, using the previous solution does not work as desired, as it interrupts the ongoing instruction, and if it is reading the socket, an error is raised:
/home/.../client.pyc
in read_register(self, regkey)
164 reg = self._REGISTERS[regkey]
165 self.send('r,{}\n'.format(reg))
--> 166 value = socket.recv(2048)
167 #Convert the string input into a valid value e.g. list or int
168 formatted_result = ast.literal_eval(value)
error: [Errno 4] Interrupted system
EDIT: It seems, from an answer below, that there is no way of using the Keyboard Interrupt and avoid the socket read function to be aborted. Despite there are solutions for catching the error, they don't avoid the read cancellation.
I am interested, though, in finding a way of getting a user input e.g. specific key press, that raises the flag, which will be checked at the end of the loop, without interrupting the main routine execution until this check.
EDIT2: The used OS is the Linux distribution Ubuntu 14.04

After quick SO search I found this solution for your issue
Basically, there's nothing you can do: when you send a SIGINT to your process, the socket will return a SIGINT as well. The best you can do, then, is to actively ignore the issue, by catching the socket EINTR error and going on with your loop:
import errno
try:
# do something
value = conn.recv(2048)
except socket.error as (code, msg):
if code != errno.EINTR:
raise
An alternative solution to avoid issues with C-c breaking reads, is to use parallel execution, to read your socket in a routine, and handle user input on the other:
import asyncio
async def camera_task(has_ended, filename):
camera = videosensor.VideoSensor(filename)
try:
while not has_ended.is_set():
location = camera.get_register()
#...
#More irrelevant stuff is executed.
#...
await asyncio.sleep(0.01)
finally:
#This code has to be executed after exiting while loop
camera_shutdown(camera)
async def input_task(shall_end):
while True:
i = input("Press 'q' to stop the script…")
if i == 'q':
shall_end.set()
def main():
filename = …
#
end_event = asyncio.Event()
asyncio.Task(camera_task(end_event, filename))
asyncio.Task(input_task(end_event))
asyncio.get_event_loop().run_forever()
or with threading
import threading, time
def camera_task(has_ended, filename):
camera = videosensor.VideoSensor(filename)
try:
while not has_ended.is_set():
location = camera.get_register()
#...
#More irrelevant stuff is executed.
#...
time.sleep(0.01)
finally:
#This code has to be executed after exiting while loop
camera_shutdown(camera)
def input_task(shall_end):
while True:
i = input("Press 'q' to stop the script…")
if i == 'q':
shall_end.set()
def main():
filename = …
#
end_event = threading.Event()
threads = [
threading.Thread(target=camera_task, args=(end_event, filename)),
threading.Thread(target=input_task, args=(end_event,))
]
# start threads
for thread in threads:
thread.start()
# wait for them to end
for thread in threads:
thread.join()
or with multiprocessing:
import multiprocessing, time
def camera_task(has_ended, filename):
camera = videosensor.VideoSensor(filename)
try:
while not has_ended.is_set():
location = camera.get_register()
#...
#More irrelevant stuff is executed.
#...
time.sleep(0.01)
finally:
#This code has to be executed after exiting while loop
camera_shutdown(camera)
def input_task(shall_end):
while True:
i = input("Press 'q' to stop the script…")
if i == 'q':
shall_end.set()
def main():
filename = …
#
end_event = multiprocessing.Event()
processes = [
multiprocessing.Process(target=camera_task, args=(end_event, filename)),
multiprocessing.Process(target=input_task, args=(end_event,))
]
# start processes
for process in processes:
process.start()
# wait for them to end
for process in processes:
process.join()
disclaimer: those codes are untested, and there might be some typos or little errors, but I believe the overall logic should be 👌

You created your custom signal handler but did not overide the default keyboard interrupt behaviour. Add signal.signal(signal.SIGINT, signal_handler) to your code to accomplish this:
import videosensor
import signal
# Custom signal handler
def signal_handler(signal, frame):
"""Raises a flag when a keyboard interrupt is raised."""
global interrupted
interrupted = True
# Necessary to override default keyboard interrupt
signal.signal(signal.SIGINT, signal_handler)
if __name__ == '__main__':
# Main programme

If I understand correctly, you do not want socket.recv() to be interrupted, but you do want to use signals to let the user indicate that the I/O loop should be terminated once the current I/O operation has completed.
With the assumption that you are using Python 2 on a Unix system, you can solve your problem by calling signal.siginterrupt(signal.SIGINT, False) before entering the loop. This will cause system calls to be restarted when a signal occurs rather than interrupting it and raising an exception.
In your case this means that the socket.recv() operation will be restarted after your signal handler is called and therefore get_register() will not return until a message is received on the socket. If that is what you want your code will be:
interrupted = False
old_handler = signal.signal(signal.SIGINT, signal_handler) # install signal handler
signal.siginterrupt(signal.SIGINT, False) # do not interrupt system calls
while not interrupted:
location = camera.get_register()
if location == '':
# remote connection closed
break
#...
#More irrelevant stuff is executed.
#...
time.sleep(0.01)
That's one way to do it, but it does require that your code is running on a Unix platform.
Another way, which might work on other platforms, is to handle the exception, ignore further SIGINT signals (in case the user hits interrupt again), and then perform a final socket.recv() before returning from the get_register() function:
import errno
def get_register(s):
"""Read the content of the specified register.
"""
#Do some stuff
try:
old_handler = None
return s.recv(2048)
except socket.error as exc:
if exc.errno == errno.EINTR:
old_handler = signal.signal(signal.SIGINT, signal.SIG_IGN) # ignore this signal
return s.recv(2048) # system call was interrupted, restart it
else:
raise
finally:
if old_handler is not None:
signal.signal(signal.SIGINT, old_handler) # restore handler
Signal handling can get tricky and there might be race conditions in the above that I am not aware of. Try to use siginterrupt() if possible.

How to close the thread and exit to the command line?

I have a very simple example, it prints out the names, but the problem is, when I press ctrl+C, the program doesn't return to the normal command line interface:
^CStopping
After I only see my cursor blinking, but I can't do anything, so I have to close the window and open it up again.
I'm running Ubuntu 12.10.
that's my code:
import threading
import random
import time
import Queue
import urllib2
import sys
queue = Queue.Queue()
keep_running = True
class MyThread(threading.Thread):
def __init__(self, queue):
threading.Thread.__init__(self)
self.queue = queue
self.names = ['Sophia', 'Irina', 'Tanya', 'Cait', 'Jess']
def run(self):
while keep_running:
time.sleep(0.25)
line = self.names[random.randint(0,len(self.names)-1)]
queue.put(line)
self.queue.task_done()
class Starter():
def __init__(self):
self.queue = queue
t = MyThread(self.queue)
t.start()
self.next()
def next(self):
while True:
time.sleep(0.2)
if not self.queue.empty():
line = self.queue.get()
print line, self.queue.qsize()
else:
print 'waiting for queue'
def main():
try:
Starter()
queue.join()
except KeyboardInterrupt, e:
print 'Stopping'
keep_running = False
sys.exit(1)
main()

Your main problem is that you didn't declare keep_running as global, so main is just creating a local variable with the same name.
If you fix that, it will usually exit on some platforms.
If you want it to always exit on all platforms, you need to do two more things:
join the thread that you created.
protect the shared global variable with a Lock or other sync mechanism.
However, a shared global keep_running flag isn't really needed here anyway. You've already got a queue. Just define a special "shutdown" message you can post on the queue, or use closing the queue as a signal to shutdown.
While we're at it, unless you're trying to simulate a slow network or something, there is no need for that time.sleep in your code. Just call self.queue.get(timeout=0.2). That way, instead of always taking 0.2 seconds to get each entry, it will take up to 0.2 seconds, but as little as 0 if there's already something there.

Your main thread is stuck in Starter.next. The interrupt then is called there and propagates up to the first line of the try statement and is caught, jumping to the except clause before join can be called. Try putting the join call in a finally block (with the sys.exit) or simply moving it to th exception handler