How can I get my Python function in Flask application to stop running?

Question

I set up a function that is meant to be called every minute to send an email. I call it every minute using the following:

import smtplib
def messages_emailed():
    fromaddr = FROMADDRESS
    toaddrs = TOADDRESS
    msg = "this is a test message."

    username = USER
    password = PASSWORD

    server = smtplib.SMTP('smtp.gmail.com:587')
    server.starttls()
    server.login(username,password)
    server.sendmail(fromaddr, toaddrs, msg)
    server.quit()
         threading.Timer(60, messages_emailed).start() #runs func every min
    messages_emailed()

This worked perfectly, although despite me stopping the application in Terminal, using control–C , I am continuing to receive mail every minute, and refreshing the page in which my application is running in my browser, 127.0.0.1:5000 , continues to display my application. I can edit my script to add a cancel statement, but hitting save did not make any changes, and trying to reload my application in terminal returned an error

>  * Running on ``http://127.0.0.1:5000/ ``Traceback (most recent call
> last):   File "bit.py", line 79, in <module>
>     app.run()    File "/Library/Python/2.7/site-packages/Flask-0.9-py2.7.egg/flask/app.py",
> line 739, in run
>     run_simple(host, port, self, **options)   File "/Library/Python/2.7/site-packages/Werkzeug-0.8.3-py2.7.egg/werkzeug/serving.py",
> line 613, in run_simple
>     test_socket.bind((hostname, port))   File "/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/lib/python2.7/socket.py",
> line 224, in meth socket.error: [Errno 48] Address already in use

For now, I have stopped the influx of emails by deleting the mail account I used to send messages from. However, I am wondering what a long term solution would look like, something that I can ideally stop from the terminal or stops executing when the program does. Research has suggested using sys.exit(0) though I do not know where in my program to place this or when it will quit the function.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Answer 1

at first you have to check formatting.

if you want to use thread, you have to write your threading manager which will be encapsulates the start() , stop() methods for your threads.

thread1 = threading.Timer(60, sender()).start()

for stopping just call thread1.stop()

Answer 2

It seems that your script has start a new process to rerun the email-sending function periodically. You may check the active process by running ps aux | grep python ps aux | grep python .