CODEWITHSUNDEEP
pythongtktimerpygtk
mouche
mouche

Reputation: 1903

Run a function every X minutes - Python

I'm using Python and PyGTK. I'm interested in running a certain function, which gets data from a serial port and saves it, every several minutes.

Currently, I'm using the sleep() function in the time library. In order to be able to do processing, I have my system set up like this:

import time
waittime = 300 # 5 minutes
while(1):
    time1 = time.time()
    readserial() # Read data from serial port
    processing() # Do stuff with serial data, including dumping it to a file
    time2 = time.time()
    processingtime = time2 - time1
    sleeptime = waittime - processingtime
    time.sleep(sleeptime)

This setup allows me to have 5 minute intervals between reading data from the serial port. My issue is that I'd like to be able to have my readserial() function pause whatever is going on every 5 minutes and be able to do things all the time instead of using the time.sleep() function.

Any suggestions on how to solve this problem? Multithreading? Interrupts? Please keep in mind that I'm using python.

Thanks.

Upvotes: 12

Views: 11494

Answers (4)

Leon
Leon

Reputation: 9

try:

import wx
wx.CallLater(1000, my_timer)

Upvotes: 0

Anurag Uniyal
Anurag Uniyal

Reputation: 88777

Do not use such loop with sleep, it will block gtk from processing any UI events, instead use gtk timer e.g.

def my_timer(*args):
    return True# do ur work here, but not for long

gtk.timeout_add(60*1000, my_timer) # call every min

Upvotes: 23

wwwilliam
wwwilliam

Reputation: 9602

gtk.timeout_add appears to be deprecated, so you should use 

def my_timer(*args):
    # Do your work here
    return True

gobject.timeout_add( 60*1000, my_timer )

Upvotes: 5

u0b34a0f6ae
u0b34a0f6ae

Reputation: 49813

This is exactly like my answer here

If the time is not critical to be exact to the tenth of a second, use

glib.timeout_add_seconds(60, ..)

else as above.

timeout_add_seconds allows the system to align timeouts to other events, in the long run reducing CPU wakeups (especially if the timeout is reocurring) and save energy for the planet(!)

Upvotes: 9

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