如何在 Python 中实现计时功能？

Question

I am thinking to implement a function like below:

timeout = 60 second
timer = 0
while (timer not reach timeout):
    do somthing
    if another thing happened:
         reset timer to 0

My question is how to implement the timer stuff? Multiple thread or a particular lib?

I hope the solution is based on the python built-in lib rather than some third-part fancy package.

Answer 1

I don't think you need threads for what you have described.

import time

timeout = 60
timer = time.clock()
while timer + timeout < time.clock():
    do somthing
    if another thing happened:
        timer = time.clock()

Here, you check every iteration.

The only reason you would need a thread is if you wanted to stop in the middle of an iteration if something was taking too long.

Answer 2

I use the following idiom:

from time import time, sleep

timeout = 10 # seconds

start_doing_stuff()
start = time()
while time() - start < timeout:
    if done_doing_stuff():
        break
    print "Timeout not hit. Keep going."
    sleep(1) # Don't thrash the processor
else:
    print "Timeout elapsed."
    # Handle errors, cleanup, etc