How to quit the program in while loop using push-button in PyQt

Question

I have the following code which will start after clicking the 'Start' button in PyQt:

def Start(self):
  import time
  import os
  import RPi.GPIO as GPIO
  import datetime

  GPIO.setmode(GPIO.BCM)
  DEBUG = 1

  os.system('clear')

  # SPI port on GPIO
  SPICLK = 18
  SPIMISO = 23
  SPICS = 25

  # set up the SPI interface pins
  GPIO.setup(SPIMISO, GPIO.IN)
  GPIO.setup(SPICLK, GPIO.OUT)
  GPIO.setup(SPICS, GPIO.OUT)

  GPIO.output(SPICS, True)
  GPIO.output(SPICS, False) # bring CS low
  while True:
        adcout = 0             
        read_adc = 0
        #s=time.clock()
        for i in range(25):
            GPIO.output(SPICLK, True)
            GPIO.output(SPICLK, False)
            adcout <<= 1
            if (GPIO.input(SPIMISO)==1):
                adcout |= 0x1
        time.sleep(0.085)   
        if (GPIO.input(SPIMISO)==0):
            read_adc = adcout
            millivolts = read_adc * ( 2500.0 /(pow(2,22)))
            read_adc = "%d" % read_adc
            millivolts = "%d" % millivolts

        if DEBUG:
            print millivolts, "mV (ADC)"

The above program is for ADC reading and it will start after clicking the pushbutton called 'Start' as : self.pushButton.clicked.connect( self.Start)

And I have another pushButton_2 called 'Stop' and by clicking this the above process should stop.Please suggest, so I can able to do that.

Answer 1

1. This question is useful: tkinter loop and serial write It could be copied over with two changes: master.update becomes QtGui.qApp.processEvents and master.after becomes QTimer.singleShot.

2. Here is a sketch of how to do what you ask for with guiLoop:

   from guiLoop import guiLoop, stopLoop
   # ... means fill in your code
   class ...: 
       started = False
   
       def Start(self):
           if not self.started:
               # you can also use threads here, see the first link
               self.started = self.StartLoop()
   
       def Stop(self):
           if self.started:
               stopLoop(self.started)
               self.started = False
   
       @guiLoop
       def StartLoop(self):
           # This is your Start function
           # ...
           while True:
               # ...
               yield 0.085 # time.sleep(0.085) equivalent
               # ...
   

   Since I do not know what your code look like, here is a working example using PyQT4 and guiLoop:

   from PyQt4 import QtGui
   import sys
   
   from guiLoop import guiLoop # https://gist.github.com/niccokunzmann/8673951
   
   @guiLoop
   def led_blink(argument):
       while 1:
           print("LED on " + argument)
           yield 0.5 # time to wait
           print("LED off " + argument)
           yield 0.5
   
   app = QtGui.QApplication(sys.argv)
   
   w = QtGui.QWidget()
   w.resize(250, 150)
   w.move(300, 300)
   w.setWindowTitle('Simple')
   w.show()
   
   led_blink(w, 'shiny!')
   
   sys.exit(app.exec_())
   

   guiLoop uses QTimer.singleShot(time, function) to make the loop continue.

   You can also stop the loop with stopLoop() of guiLoop.

Answer 2

There is no need to do anything other than what I suggested in your other question on this topic: just use processEvents. As long as you can call it frequently enough (but not too frequently), it should do exactly what you want. Using your second example, the following works fine for me:

  def Start(self):
    if not self.started:
        self.started = True
        self.StartLoop()

  def Stop(self):
    if self.started:
        self.started = False

  def StartLoop(self):
    DEBUG = 1
    while self.started:
        print "LED on "
        time.sleep(0.05)
        print "LED off "
        time.sleep(0.085)
        QtGui.qApp.processEvents()