python - Execute task every so often within a process

8
votes

I want to execute a task every 2 hours. Python has a Timer in Threading module, but does it meet my needs? How do I generate a proper Timer myself?

2
pythontimer
Do you want to execute a task every two hours, or do you want a Python script to do something every two hours? - Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams
To call another python function every 2 hrs - pat.inside

2 Answers

18
votes

If you want your code to be run every 2 hours the easiest way would be using cron or a similar scheduler depending on your operating system

if you want your programm to call a function every n seconds ( 7200 in your case ) you could use a thread and event.wait. The following example starts a timer that is triggered every second and prints a string to stdout 

import threading
import time

class TimerClass(threading.Thread):
    def __init__(self):
        threading.Thread.__init__(self)
        self.event = threading.Event()

    def run(self):
        while not self.event.is_set():
            print "do something"
            self.event.wait( 1 )

    def stop(self):
        self.event.set()

tmr = TimerClass()
tmr.start()

time.sleep( 10 )

tmr.stop()
0
votes

Can this be a solution.......

import time

    def fun1():
        print "Hi "

    while 1:

        fun1()
        time.sleep(5)

The function fun1 will be executed after every 5 sec. But i don't know if this is a good way to invoke a function after a specific time. Any drawbacks of this solution ?