Python Equivalent of setInterval()?

Question

Does Python have a function similar to JavaScript's setInterval()?

Thanks

Answer 1

This might be the correct snippet you were looking for:

import threading

def set_interval(func, sec):
    def func_wrapper():
        set_interval(func, sec)
        func()
    t = threading.Timer(sec, func_wrapper)
    t.start()
    return t

Answer 2

Just keep it nice and simple.

import threading

def setInterval(func,time):
    e = threading.Event()
    while not e.wait(time):
        func()

def foo():
    print "hello"

# using
setInterval(foo,5)

# output:
hello
hello
.
.
.

EDIT : This code is non-blocking

import threading

class ThreadJob(threading.Thread):
    def __init__(self,callback,event,interval):
        '''runs the callback function after interval seconds

        :param callback:  callback function to invoke
        :param event: external event for controlling the update operation
        :param interval: time in seconds after which are required to fire the callback
        :type callback: function
        :type interval: int
        '''
        self.callback = callback
        self.event = event
        self.interval = interval
        super(ThreadJob,self).__init__()

    def run(self):
        while not self.event.wait(self.interval):
            self.callback()



event = threading.Event()

def foo():
    print "hello"

k = ThreadJob(foo,event,2)
k.start()

print "It is non-blocking"

Answer 3

This is a version where you could start and stop. It is not blocking. There is also no glitch as execution time error is not added (important for long time execution with very short interval as audio for example)

import time, threading

StartTime=time.time()

def action() :
    print('action ! -> time : {:.1f}s'.format(time.time()-StartTime))


class setInterval :
    def __init__(self,interval,action) :
        self.interval=interval
        self.action=action
        self.stopEvent=threading.Event()
        thread=threading.Thread(target=self.__setInterval)
        thread.start()

    def __setInterval(self) :
        nextTime=time.time()+self.interval
        while not self.stopEvent.wait(nextTime-time.time()) :
            nextTime+=self.interval
            self.action()

    def cancel(self) :
        self.stopEvent.set()

# start action every 0.6s
inter=setInterval(0.6,action)
print('just after setInterval -> time : {:.1f}s'.format(time.time()-StartTime))

# will stop interval in 5s
t=threading.Timer(5,inter.cancel)
t.start()

Output is :

just after setInterval -> time : 0.0s
action ! -> time : 0.6s
action ! -> time : 1.2s
action ! -> time : 1.8s
action ! -> time : 2.4s
action ! -> time : 3.0s
action ! -> time : 3.6s
action ! -> time : 4.2s
action ! -> time : 4.8s

Answer 4

Change Nailxx's answer a bit and you got the answer!

from threading import Timer

def hello():
    print "hello, world"
    Timer(30.0, hello).start()

Timer(30.0, hello).start() # after 30 seconds, "hello, world" will be printed

Answer 5

The sched module provides these abilities for general Python code. However, as its documentation suggests, if your code is multithreaded it might make more sense to use the threading.Timer class instead.

Answer 6

I think this is what you're after:

#timertest.py
import sched, time
def dostuff():
  print "stuff is being done!"
  s.enter(3, 1, dostuff, ())

s = sched.scheduler(time.time, time.sleep)
s.enter(3, 1, dostuff, ())
s.run()

If you add another entry to the scheduler at the end of the repeating method, it'll just keep going.

Answer 7

Simple setInterval utils

from threading import Timer

def setInterval(timer, task):
    isStop = task()
    if not isStop:
        Timer(timer, setInterval, [timer, task]).start()

def hello():
    print "do something"
    return False # return True if you want to stop

if __name__ == "__main__":
    setInterval(2.0, hello) # every 2 seconds, "do something" will be printed

Answer 8

Recently, I have the same issue as you. And I find these soluation:

1. you can use the library: threading.Time(this have introduction above)

2. you can use the library: sched(this have introduction above too)

3. you can use the library: Advanced Python Scheduler(Recommend)

Answer 9

The above method didn't quite do it for me as I needed to be able to cancel the interval. I turned the function into a class and came up with the following:

class setInterval():
    def __init__(self, func, sec):
        def func_wrapper():
            self.t = threading.Timer(sec, func_wrapper)
            self.t.start()
            func()
        self.t = threading.Timer(sec, func_wrapper)
        self.t.start()

    def cancel(self):
        self.t.cancel()

Answer 10

Some answers above that uses func_wrapper and threading.Timer indeed work, except that it spawns a new thread every time an interval is called, which is causing memory problems.

The basic example below roughly implemented a similar mechanism by putting interval on a separate thread. It sleeps at the given interval. Before jumping into code, here are some of the limitations that you need to be aware of:

1. JavaScript is single threaded, so when the function inside setInterval is fired, nothing else will be working at the same time (excluding worker thread, but let's talk general use case of setInterval. Therefore, threading is safe. But here in this implementation, you may encounter race conditions unless using a threading.rLock.

2. The implementation below uses time.sleep to simulate intervals, but adding the execution time of func, the total time for this interval may be greater than what you expect. So depending on use cases, you may want to "sleep less" (minus time taken for calling func)

3. I only roughly tested this, and you should definitely not use global variables the way I did, feel free to tweak it so that it fits in your system.

---

Enough talking, here is the code:

# Python 2.7
import threading
import time


class Interval(object):
    def __init__(self):
        self.daemon_alive = True
        self.thread = None # keep a reference to the thread so that we can "join"

    def ticktock(self, interval, func):
        while self.daemon_alive:
            time.sleep(interval)
            func()

num = 0
def print_num():
    global num
    num += 1
    print 'num + 1 = ', num

def print_negative_num():
    global num
    print '-num = ', num * -1

intervals = {} # keep track of intervals
g_id_counter = 0 # roughly generate ids for intervals

def set_interval(interval, func):
    global g_id_counter

    interval_obj = Interval()
    # Put this interval on a new thread
    t = threading.Thread(target=interval_obj.ticktock, args=(interval, func))
    t.setDaemon(True)
    interval_obj.thread = t
    t.start()

    # Register this interval so that we can clear it later
    # using roughly generated id
    interval_id = g_id_counter
    g_id_counter += 1
    intervals[interval_id] = interval_obj

    # return interval id like it does in JavaScript
    return interval_id

def clear_interval(interval_id):
    # terminate this interval's while loop
    intervals[interval_id].daemon_alive = False
    # kill the thread
    intervals[interval_id].thread.join()
    # pop out the interval from registry for reusing
    intervals.pop(interval_id)

if __name__ == '__main__':
    num_interval = set_interval(1, print_num)
    neg_interval = set_interval(3, print_negative_num)

    time.sleep(10) # Sleep 10 seconds on main thread to let interval run
    clear_interval(num_interval)
    clear_interval(neg_interval)
    print "- Are intervals all cleared?"
    time.sleep(3) # check if both intervals are stopped (not printing)
    print "- Yup, time to get beers"

Expected output:

num + 1 =  1
num + 1 =  2
-num =  -2
 num + 1 =  3
num + 1 =  4
num + 1 =  5
-num =  -5
num + 1 =  6
num + 1 =  7
num + 1 =  8
-num =  -8
num + 1 =  9
num + 1 =  10
-num =  -10
Are intervals all cleared?
Yup, time to get beers

Answer 11

My Python 3 module jsinterval.py will be helpful! Here it is:

"""
Threaded intervals and timeouts from JavaScript
"""

import threading, sys

__all__ =  ['TIMEOUTS', 'INTERVALS', 'setInterval', 'clearInterval', 'setTimeout', 'clearTimeout']

TIMEOUTS  = {}
INTERVALS = {}

last_timeout_id  = 0
last_interval_id = 0

class Timeout:
    """Class for all timeouts."""
    def __init__(self, func, timeout):
        global last_timeout_id
        last_timeout_id += 1
        self.timeout_id = last_timeout_id
        TIMEOUTS[str(self.timeout_id)] = self
        self.func = func
        self.timeout = timeout
        self.threadname = 'Timeout #%s' %self.timeout_id

    def run(self):
        func = self.func
        delx = self.__del__
        def func_wrapper():
            func()
            delx()
        self.t = threading.Timer(self.timeout/1000, func_wrapper)
        self.t.name = self.threadname
        self.t.start()

    def __repr__(self):
        return '<JS Timeout set for %s seconds, launching function %s on timeout reached>' %(self.timeout, repr(self.func))

    def __del__(self):
        self.t.cancel()

class Interval:
    """Class for all intervals."""
    def __init__(self, func, interval):
        global last_interval_id
        self.interval_id = last_interval_id
        INTERVALS[str(self.interval_id)] = self
        last_interval_id += 1
        self.func = func
        self.interval = interval
        self.threadname = 'Interval #%s' %self.interval_id

    def run(self):
        func = self.func
        interval = self.interval
        def func_wrapper():
            timeout = Timeout(func_wrapper, interval)
            self.timeout = timeout
            timeout.run()
            func()
        self.t = threading.Timer(self.interval/1000, func_wrapper)
        self.t.name = self.threadname
        self.t.run()

    def __repr__(self):
        return '<JS Interval, repeating function %s with interval %s>' %(repr(self.func), self.interval)

    def __del__(self):
        self.timeout.__del__()

def setInterval(func, interval):
    """
    Create a JS Interval: func is the function to repeat, interval is the interval (in ms)
    of executing the function.
    """
    temp = Interval(func, interval)
    temp.run()
    idx = int(temp.interval_id)
    del temp
    return idx


def clearInterval(interval_id):
    try:
        INTERVALS[str(interval_id)].__del__()
        del INTERVALS[str(interval_id)]
    except KeyError:
        sys.stderr.write('No such interval "Interval #%s"\n' %interval_id)

def setTimeout(func, timeout):
    """
    Create a JS Timeout: func is the function to timeout, timeout is the timeout (in ms)
    of executing the function.
    """
    temp = Timeout(func, timeout)
    temp.run()
    idx = int(temp.timeout_id)
    del temp
    return idx


def clearTimeout(timeout_id):
    try:
        TIMEOUTS[str(timeout_id)].__del__()
        del TIMEOUTS[str(timeout_id)]
    except KeyError:
        sys.stderr.write('No such timeout "Timeout #%s"\n' %timeout_id)

---

CODE EDIT: Fixed the memory leak (spotted by @benjaminz). Now ALL threads are cleaned up upon end. Why does this leak happen? It happens because of the implicit (or even explicit) references. In my case, TIMEOUTS and INTERVALS. Timeouts self-clean automatically (after this patch) because they use function wrapper which calls the function and then self-kills. But how does this happen? Objects can't be deleted from memory unless all references are deleted too or gc module is used. Explaining: there's no way to create (in my code) unwanted references to timeouts/intervals. They have only ONE referrer: the TIMEOUTS/INTERVALS dicts. And, when interrupted or finished (only timeouts can finish uninterrupted) they delete the only existing reference to themselves: their corresponding dict element. Classes are perfectly encapsulated using __all__, so no space for memory leaks.

Answer 12

Here is a low time drift solution that uses a thread to periodically signal an Event object. The thread's run() does almost nothing while waiting for a timeout; hence the low time drift.

# Example of low drift (time) periodic execution of a function.
import threading
import time

# Thread that sets 'flag' after 'timeout'
class timerThread (threading.Thread):

    def __init__(self , timeout , flag):
        threading.Thread.__init__(self)
        self.timeout = timeout
        self.stopFlag = False
        self.event = threading.Event()
        self.flag = flag

    # Low drift run(); there is only the 'if'
    # and 'set' methods between waits.
    def run(self):
        while not self.event.wait(self.timeout):
            if self.stopFlag:
                break
            self.flag.set()

    def stop(self):
        stopFlag = True
        self.event.set()

# Data.
printCnt = 0

# Flag to print.
printFlag = threading.Event()

# Create and start the timer thread.
printThread = timerThread(3 , printFlag)
printThread.start()

# Loop to wait for flag and print time.
while True:

    global printCnt

    # Wait for flag.
    printFlag.wait()
    # Flag must be manually cleared.
    printFlag.clear()
    print(time.time())
    printCnt += 1
    if printCnt == 3:
        break;

# Stop the thread and exit.
printThread.stop()
printThread.join()
print('Done')

Answer 13

Most of the answers above do not shut down the Thread properly. While using Jupyter notebook I noticed that when an explicit interrupt was sent, the threads were still running and worse, they would keep multiplying starting at 1 thread running,2, 4 etc. My method below is based on the answer by @doom but cleanly handles interrupts by running an infinite loop in the Main thread to listen for SIGINT and SIGTERM events

• No drift
• Cancelable
• Handles SIGINT and SIGTERM very well
• Doesnt make a new thread for every run

Feel free to suggest improvements

import time
import threading
import signal

# Record the time for the purposes of demonstration 
start_time=time.time()

class ProgramKilled(Exception):
    """
    An instance of this custom exception class will be thrown everytime we get an SIGTERM or SIGINT
    """
    pass

# Raise the custom exception whenever SIGINT or SIGTERM is triggered
def signal_handler(signum, frame):
    raise ProgramKilled

# This function serves as the callback triggered on every run of our IntervalThread
def action() :
    print('action ! -> time : {:.1f}s'.format(time.time()-start_time))

# https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2697039/python-equivalent-of-setinterval
class IntervalThread(threading.Thread) :
    def __init__(self,interval,action, *args, **kwargs) :
        super(IntervalThread, self).__init__()
        self.interval=interval
        self.action=action
        self.stopEvent=threading.Event()
        self.start()

    def run(self) :
        nextTime=time.time()+self.interval
        while not self.stopEvent.wait(nextTime-time.time()) :
            nextTime+=self.interval
            self.action()

    def cancel(self) :
        self.stopEvent.set()

def main():

    # Handle SIGINT and SIFTERM with the help of the callback function
    signal.signal(signal.SIGTERM, signal_handler)
    signal.signal(signal.SIGINT, signal_handler)
    # start action every 1s
    inter=IntervalThread(1,action)
    print('just after setInterval -> time : {:.1f}s'.format(time.time()-start_time))

    # will stop interval in 500s
    t=threading.Timer(500,inter.cancel)
    t.start()

    # https://www.g-loaded.eu/2016/11/24/how-to-terminate-running-python-threads-using-signals/
    while True:
        try:
            time.sleep(1)
        except ProgramKilled:
            print("Program killed: running cleanup code")
            inter.cancel()
            break

if __name__ == "__main__":
    main()

Answer 14

Things work differently in Python: you need to either sleep() (if you want to block the current thread) or start a new thread. See http://docs.python.org/library/threading.html

Answer 15

From Python Documentation:

from threading import Timer

def hello():
    print "hello, world"

t = Timer(30.0, hello)
t.start() # after 30 seconds, "hello, world" will be printed