How to implement right threading execution order in python? - python

I recently started studying threads in python, and I ran into this problem: I need the "two" function to finish executing after executing the function one in the thread, but the join method does not work, apparently because of the while true loop in the third function. I tried using queue, but it didn't work either.
the code itself:
from threading import Thread,Event
def one():
event.set()
thr.join()
for i in range(3):
print('some print')
time.sleep(1)
def two():
t = Thread(target=one)
t.start()
#with t.join() here the program does not work at all, same thing with event.set()
print('func two finished')
def three(callback, event):
c = 0
while True:
c += 1
time.sleep(1)
print('func 3 is working')
if c == 5:
two()
if event.is_set():
callback(c)
print('func 3 is stopped')
break
def callback(t):
print('callback ',t)
def thread(callback):
global event, thr
event = Event()
thr = Thread(target=three, args=(callback, event,))
thr.start()
thr.join()
thread(callback)
current output:
func 3 is working
func 3 is working
func 3 is working
func 3 is working
func 3 is working
func two finished
callback 5
func 3 is stopped
some print
some print
some print
expected:
func 3 is working
func 3 is working
func 3 is working
func 3 is working
func 3 is working
callback 5
func 3 is stopped
some print
some print
some print
func two finished

After running the code I understand by "not working" you mean the program finished before all prints are printed.
The reason is that you join the thr thread twice, one of them by the main thread.
The sequence of return of join is not guaranteed.
When the main thread finished, all threads created by the program also finish, so they terminated no matter what.
Same thing when setting the event, it makes the main thread exit and kill the remaining threads.
To do what you intend, you should wait for the one thread in the main thread.
from threading import Thread,Event
def one():
event.set()
thr.join()
for i in range(3):
print('some print')
time.sleep(1)
def two():
t = Thread(target=one)
t.start()
#with t.join() here the program does not work at all, same thing with event.set()
print('func two finished')
def three(callback, event):
c = 0
while True:
c += 1
time.sleep(1)
print('func 3 is working')
if c == 5:
two()
if event.is_set():
callback(c)
print('func 3 is stopped')
break
def callback(t):
print('callback ',t)
def thread(callback):
global event, thr
event = Event()
thr = Thread(target=three, args=(callback, event,))
thr.start()
thr.join()
thread(callback)
Note that as other said, this might be nice for learning purpesses but has to be modified if you want to actually use it in real life code.

Your program creates a deadlock if you un-comment that t.join() call in function two;
The thr thread cannot finish until after the t thread has finished because the thr thread calls t.join() in function two.
The t thread cannot finish until after the thr thread has finished because the t thread calls thr.join() in function one.
Neither thread can finish until after the other thread finishes. Therefore, neither thread can ever finish.
Why does one join the thr thread?
def one():
event.set()
thr.join() # What were you trying to do here?
for i in range(3):
print('some print')
time.sleep(1)
Your program will give the output you wanted if you comment out that join call, and uncomment the t.join() call in function two.

The sequence you need is obtained by a small permutation of commands. But it is not clear why you need threads if everything is done sequentially.
from threading import Thread, Event
import time
def one(event):
event.set()
for i in range(3):
print('some print')
time.sleep(1)
def two(event):
t = Thread(target=one, args=(event,))
t.start()
t.join()
print('func two finished')
def three(event):
c = 0
while True:
c += 1
time.sleep(1)
print('func 3 is working')
if c == 5:
callback(c)
print('func 3 is stopped')
two(event)
break
def callback(t):
print('callback ', t)
def thread():
event = Event()
thr = Thread(target=three, args=(event,))
thr.start()
thread()
--------------------------------
func 3 is working
func 3 is working
func 3 is working
func 3 is working
func 3 is working
callback 5
func 3 is stopped
some print
some print
some print
func two finished

This is a comment, not an answer.
This makes no sense:
t = Thread(target=one, args=(event,))
t.start()
t.join()
There's no point in starting a new thread if you aren't going to do something concurrently with the thread. Either do this,
t = Thread(target=one, args=(event,))
t.start()
do_something_else_concurrently_with_thread_t(...)
t.join()
Or just just call the function instead of creating a new thread to call it:
one(event)
If you don't want concurrency, then you don't need threads.

Related

python - how to run background thread without stopping main thread

This simple code example:
import threading
import time
class Monitor():
def __init__(self):
self.stop = False
self.blocked_emails = []
def start_monitor(self):
print("Run start_monitor")
rows = []
while not self.stop:
self.check_rows(rows)
print("inside while")
time.sleep(1)
def check_rows(self, rows):
print('check_rows')
def stop_monitoring(self):
print("Run stop_monitoring")
self.stop = True
if __name__ == '__main__':
monitor = Monitor()
b = threading.Thread(name='background_monitor', target=monitor.start_monitor())
b.start()
b.join()
for i in range(0, 10):
time.sleep(2)
print('Wait 2 sec.')
monitor.stop_monitoring()
How can I run background thread, in mine case background_monitor without blocking main thread?
I wanted to background_monitor thread stopped on after stop_monitoring will be called
I mine example, the for loop from main thread never called and the background is running forever.
There are two issues with your current code. Firstly, you're calling monitor.start_monitor on this line, whereas according to the docs
target is the callable object to be invoked by the run() method. Defaults to None, meaning nothing is called
This means that you need to pass it as a function rather than calling it. To fix this, you should change the line
b = threading.Thread(name='background_monitor', target=monitor.start_monitor())
to
b = threading.Thread(name='background_monitor', target=monitor.start_monitor)
which passes the function as an argument.
Secondly, you use b.join() before stopping the thread, which waits for the second thread to finish before continuing. Instead, you should place that below the monitor.stop_monitoring().
The corrected code looks like this:
import threading
import time
class Monitor():
def __init__(self):
self.stop = False
self.blocked_emails = []
def start_monitor(self):
print("Run start_monitor")
rows = []
while not self.stop:
self.check_rows(rows)
print("inside while")
time.sleep(1)
def check_rows(self, rows):
print('check_rows')
def stop_monitoring(self):
print("Run stop_monitoring")
self.stop = True
if __name__ == '__main__':
monitor = Monitor()
b = threading.Thread(name='background_monitor', target=monitor.start_monitor)
b.start()
for i in range(0, 10):
time.sleep(2)
print('Wait 2 sec.')
monitor.stop_monitoring()
b.join()

Python threads exit with ctrl-c in Python

I am having the Python Multi-threaded program as below. If I press ctrl+c within 5 seconds (approx), It is going inside the KeyboardInterrupt exception.
Running the code longer than 15 seconds failed to respond to ctrl+c. If I press ctrl+c after 15 seconds, It is not working. It is not throwing KeyboardInterrupt exception. What could be the reason ? I tested this on Linux.
#!/usr/bin/python
import os, sys, threading, time
class Worker(threading.Thread):
def __init__(self):
threading.Thread.__init__(self)
# A flag to notify the thread that it should finish up and exit
self.kill_received = False
def run(self):
while not self.kill_received:
self.do_something()
def do_something(self):
[i*i for i in range(10000)]
time.sleep(1)
def main(args):
threads = []
for i in range(10):
t = Worker()
threads.append(t)
t.start()
while len(threads) > 0:
try:
# Join all threads using a timeout so it doesn't block
# Filter out threads which have been joined or are None
threads = [t.join(1) for t in threads if t is not None and t.isAlive()]
except KeyboardInterrupt:
print "Ctrl-c received! Sending kill to threads..."
for t in threads:
t.kill_received = True
if __name__ == '__main__':
main(sys.argv)
After the first execution of
threads = [t.join(1) for t in threads if t is not None and t.isAlive()]
your variable threads contains
[None, None, None, None, None, None, None, None, None, None]
after the second execution, the same variable threads contains:
[]
At this point, len(threads) > 0 is False and you get out of the while loop. Your script is still running since you have 10 threads still active, but since you're not anymore in your try / except block (to catch KeyboardInterrupt), you can't stop using Ctrl + C
Add some prints to your script to see what I described:
#!/usr/bin/python
import os, sys, threading, time
class Worker(threading.Thread):
def __init__(self):
threading.Thread.__init__(self)
# A flag to notify the thread that it should finish up and exit
self.kill_received = False
def run(self):
while not self.kill_received:
self.do_something()
def do_something(self):
[i*i for i in range(10000)]
time.sleep(1)
def main(args):
threads = []
for i in range(10):
t = Worker()
threads.append(t)
t.start()
print('thread {} started'.format(i))
while len(threads) > 0:
print('Before joining')
try:
# Join all threads using a timeout so it doesn't block
# Filter out threads which have been joined or are None
threads = [t.join(1) for t in threads if t is not None and t.isAlive()]
print('After join() on threads: threads={}'.format(threads))
except KeyboardInterrupt:
print("Ctrl-c received! Sending kill to threads...")
for t in threads:
t.kill_received = True
print('main() execution is now finished...')
if __name__ == '__main__':
main(sys.argv)
And the result:
$ python thread_test.py
thread 0 started
thread 1 started
thread 2 started
thread 3 started
thread 4 started
thread 5 started
thread 6 started
thread 7 started
thread 8 started
thread 9 started
Before joining
After join() on threads: threads=[None, None, None, None, None, None, None, None, None, None]
Before joining
After join() on threads: threads=[]
main() execution is now finished...
Actually, Ctrl + C doesn't stop to work after 15 seconds, but after 10 or 11 seconds. This is the time needed to create and start the 10 threads (less than a second) and to execute join(1) on each thread (about 10 seconds).
Hint from the doc:
As join() always returns None, you must call isAlive() after join() to decide whether a timeout happened – if the thread is still alive, the join() call timed out.
to follow up on the poster above, isAlive() got renamed to is_alive()
tried on Python 3.9.6
full code:
#!/usr/bin/python
import os, sys, threading, time
class Worker(threading.Thread):
def __init__(self):
threading.Thread.__init__(self)
# A flag to notify the thread that it should finish up and exit
self.kill_received = False
def run(self):
while not self.kill_received:
self.do_something()
def do_something(self):
[i*i for i in range(10000)]
time.sleep(1)
def main(args):
threads = []
for i in range(10):
t = Worker()
threads.append(t)
t.start()
print('thread {} started'.format(i))
while len(threads) > 0:
print('Before joining')
try:
# Join all threads using a timeout so it doesn't block
# Filter out threads which have been joined or are None
threads = [t.join(1) for t in threads if t is not None and t.is_alive()]
print('After join() on threads: threads={}'.format(threads))
except KeyboardInterrupt:
print("Ctrl-c received! Sending kill to threads...")
for t in threads:
t.kill_received = True
print('main() execution is now finished...')
if __name__ == '__main__':
main(sys.argv)

Semaphores on Python

I've started programming in Python a few weeks ago and was trying to use Semaphores to synchronize two simple threads, for learning purposes. Here is what I've got:
import threading
sem = threading.Semaphore()
def fun1():
while True:
sem.acquire()
print(1)
sem.release()
def fun2():
while True:
sem.acquire()
print(2)
sem.release()
t = threading.Thread(target = fun1)
t.start()
t2 = threading.Thread(target = fun2)
t2.start()
But it keeps printing just 1's. How can I intercale the prints?
It is working fine, its just that its printing too fast for you to see . Try putting a time.sleep() in both functions (a small amount) to sleep the thread for that much amount of time, to actually be able to see both 1 as well as 2.
Example -
import threading
import time
sem = threading.Semaphore()
def fun1():
while True:
sem.acquire()
print(1)
sem.release()
time.sleep(0.25)
def fun2():
while True:
sem.acquire()
print(2)
sem.release()
time.sleep(0.25)
t = threading.Thread(target = fun1)
t.start()
t2 = threading.Thread(target = fun2)
t2.start()
Also, you can use Lock/mutex method as follows:
import threading
import time
mutex = threading.Lock() # is equal to threading.Semaphore(1)
def fun1():
while True:
mutex.acquire()
print(1)
mutex.release()
time.sleep(.5)
def fun2():
while True:
mutex.acquire()
print(2)
mutex.release()
time.sleep(.5)
t1 = threading.Thread(target=fun1).start()
t2 = threading.Thread(target=fun2).start()
Simpler style using "with":
import threading
import time
mutex = threading.Lock() # is equal to threading.Semaphore(1)
def fun1():
while True:
with mutex:
print(1)
time.sleep(.5)
def fun2():
while True:
with mutex:
print(2)
time.sleep(.5)
t1 = threading.Thread(target=fun1).start()
t2 = threading.Thread(target=fun2).start()
[NOTE]:
The difference between mutex, semaphore, and lock
In fact, I want to find asyncio.Semaphores, not threading.Semaphore,
and I believe someone may want it too.
So, I decided to share the asyncio.Semaphores, hope you don't mind.
from asyncio import (
Task,
Semaphore,
)
import asyncio
from typing import List
async def shopping(sem: Semaphore):
while True:
async with sem:
print(shopping.__name__)
await asyncio.sleep(0.25) # Transfer control to the loop, and it will assign another job (is idle) to run.
async def coding(sem: Semaphore):
while True:
async with sem:
print(coding.__name__)
await asyncio.sleep(0.25)
async def main():
sem = Semaphore(value=1)
list_task: List[Task] = [asyncio.create_task(_coroutine(sem)) for _coroutine in (shopping, coding)]
"""
# Normally, we will wait until all the task has done, but that is impossible in your case.
for task in list_task:
await task
"""
await asyncio.sleep(2) # So, I let the main loop wait for 2 seconds, then close the program.
asyncio.run(main())
output
shopping
coding
shopping
coding
shopping
coding
shopping
coding
shopping
coding
shopping
coding
shopping
coding
shopping
coding
16*0.25 = 2
I used this code to demonstrate how 1 thread can use a Semaphore and the other thread will wait (non-blocking) until the Sempahore is available.
This was written using Python3.6; Not tested on any other version.
This will only work is the synchronization is being done from the same thread, IPC from separate processes will fail using this mechanism.
import threading
from time import sleep
sem = threading.Semaphore()
def fun1():
print("fun1 starting")
sem.acquire()
for loop in range(1,5):
print("Fun1 Working {}".format(loop))
sleep(1)
sem.release()
print("fun1 finished")
def fun2():
print("fun2 starting")
while not sem.acquire(blocking=False):
print("Fun2 No Semaphore available")
sleep(1)
else:
print("Got Semphore")
for loop in range(1, 5):
print("Fun2 Working {}".format(loop))
sleep(1)
sem.release()
t1 = threading.Thread(target = fun1)
t2 = threading.Thread(target = fun2)
t1.start()
t2.start()
t1.join()
t2.join()
print("All Threads done Exiting")
When I run this - I get the following output.
fun1 starting
Fun1 Working 1
fun2 starting
Fun2 No Semaphore available
Fun1 Working 2
Fun2 No Semaphore available
Fun1 Working 3
Fun2 No Semaphore available
Fun1 Working 4
Fun2 No Semaphore available
fun1 finished
Got Semphore
Fun2 Working 1
Fun2 Working 2
Fun2 Working 3
Fun2 Working 4
All Threads done Exiting
Existing answers are wastefully sleeping
I noticed that almost all answers use some form of time.sleep or asyncio.sleep, which blocks the thread. This should be avoided in real software, because blocking your thread for 0.25, 0.5 or 1 second is unnecessary/wasteful - you could be doing more processing, especially if your application is IO bound - it already blocks when it does IO AND you are introducing arbitrary delays (latency) in your processing time. If all your threads are sleeping, your app isn't doing anything. Also, these variables are quite arbitrary, which is why each answer has a different value they sleep (block the thread for).
The answers are using it as a way to get Python's bytecode interpreter to pre-empt the thread after each print line, so that it alternates deterministically between running the 2 threads. By default, the interpreter pre-empts a thread every 5ms (sys.getswitchinterval() returns 0.005), and remember that these threads never run in parallel, because of Python's GIL
Solution to problem
How can I intercale the prints?
So my answer would be, you do not want to use semaphores to print (or process) something in a certain order reliably, because you cannot rely on thread prioritization in Python. See Controlling scheduling priority of python threads? for more. time.sleep(arbitrarilyLargeEnoughNumber) doesn't really work when you have more than 2 concurrent pieces of code, since you don't know which one will run next - see * below. If the order matters, use a queue, and worker threads:
from threading import Thread
import queue
q = queue.Queue()
def enqueue():
while True:
q.put(1)
q.put(2)
def reader():
while True:
value = q.get()
print(value)
enqueuer_thread = Thread(target = enqueue)
reader_thread_1 = Thread(target = reader)
reader_thread_2 = Thread(target = reader)
reader_thread_3 = Thread(target = reader)
enqueuer_thread.start()
reader_thread_1.start()
reader_thread_2.start()
reader_thread_3.start()
...
Unfortunately in this problem, you don't get to use Semaphore.
*An extra check for you
If you try a modification of the top voted answer but with an extra function/thread to print(3), you'll get:
1
2
3
1
3
2
1
3
...
Within a few prints, the ordering is broken - it's 1-3-2.
You need to use 2 semaphores to do what you want to do, and you need to initialize them at 0.
import threading
SEM_FUN1 = threading.Semaphore(0)
SEM_FUN2 = threading.Semaphore(0)
def fun1() -> None:
for _ in range(5):
SEM_FUN1.acquire()
print(1)
SEM_FUN2.release()
def fun2() -> None:
for _ in range(5):
SEM_FUN2.acquire()
print(2)
SEM_FUN1.release()
threading.Thread(target=fun1).start()
threading.Thread(target=fun2).start()
SEM_FUN1.release() # Trigger fun1
Output:

How to use a thread pool to do infinite loop function?

I want to do a infinite loop function.
Here is my code
def do_request():
# my code here
print(result)
while True:
do_request()
When use while True to do this, it's a little slow, so I want to use a thread pool to concurrently execute the function do_request(). How to do this ?
Just like use ab (Apache Bench) to test HTTP server.
Finally, I've solved this problem. I use a variable to limit the thread number.
Here is my final code, solved my problem.
import threading
import time
thread_num = 0
lock = threading.Lock()
def do_request():
global thread_num
# -------------
# my code here
# -------------
with lock:
thread_num -= 1
while True:
if thread_num <= 50:
with lock:
thread_num += 1
t = threading.Thread(target=do_request)
t.start()
else:
time.sleep(0.01)
Thanks for all replies.
You can use threading in Python to implement this.
Can be something similar to this (when using two extra threads only):
import threading
# define threads
task1 = threading.Thread(target = do_request)
task2 = threading.Thread(target = do_request)
# start both threads
task1.start()
task2.start()
# wait for threads to complete
task1.join()
task2.join()
Basically, you start as many threads as you need (make sure you don't get too many, so your system can handle it), then you .join() them to wait for tasks to complete.
Or you can get fancier with multiprocessing Python module.
Try the following code:
import multiprocessing as mp
import time
def do_request():
while(True):
print('I\'m making requests')
time.sleep(0.5)
p = mp.Process(target=do_request)
p.start()
for ii in range(10):
print 'I\'m also doing other things though'
time.sleep(0.7)
print 'Now it is time to kill the service thread'
p.terminate()
The main thread stars a service thread that does the request and goes on until it has to, and then it finishes up the service thread.
Maybe you can use the concurrent.futures.ThreadPoolExecutor
from concurrent.futures import ThreadPoolExecutor
import time
def wait_on_b(hello):
time.sleep(1)
print(hello) # b will never complete because it is waiting on a.
return 5
def wait_on_a():
time.sleep(1)
print(a.result()) # a will never complete because it is waiting on b.
return 6
executor = ThreadPoolExecutor(max_workers=2)
a = executor.submit(wait_on_b, 3)
b = executor.submit(wait_on_a)
How about this?
from threading import Thread, Event
class WorkerThread(Thread):
def __init__(self, logger, func):
Thread.__init__(self)
self.stop_event = Event()
self.logger = logger
self.func = func
def run(self):
self.logger("Going to start the infinite loop...")
#Your code
self.func()
concur_task = WorkerThread(logger, func = do_request)
concur_task.start()
To end this thread...
concur_task.stop_event.set()
concur_task.join(10) #or any value you like

Python threaded code not acting threaded

Why doesn't this code "act" threaded? (Please see the output.)
import time
from threading import Thread
def main():
for nums in [range(0,5), range(5,10)]:
t = Spider(nums)
t.start()
print 'started a thread'
t.join()
print "done"
class Spider(Thread):
def __init__(self, nums):
Thread.__init__(self)
self.nums = nums
def run(self): # this is an override
for num in self.nums:
time.sleep(3) # or do something that takes a while
print 'finished %s' % (num, )
if __name__ == '__main__':
main()
Output:
started a thread
finished 0
finished 1
finished 2
finished 3
finished 4
started a thread
finished 5
finished 6
finished 7
finished 8
finished 9
done
When you say t.join(), you're telling it to wait for the thread to end.
This means, you're asking it to make a thread, start it, then wait for the thread to end before making a new one.
If you want it to act multithreaded, you'll need to move the join()s outside of the loop.
def main():
# We will store the running threads in this
threads = []
# Start the threads
for nums in [range(0,5), range(5,10)]:
t = Spider(nums)
t.start()
print 'started a thread'
threads.append(t)
# All the threads have been started
# Now we wait for them to finish
for t in threads:
t.join()
print "done"
See also:
Documentation of Thread.join()
Your Thread join t.join blocks the main thread until the thread completes execution ( http://docs.python.org/library/threading.html#threading.Thread.join ). Change your code to look something like this:
def main():
threads = []
for nums in [range(0,5), range(5,10)]:
t = Spider(nums)
t.start()
print 'started a thread'
threads.append(t)
for t in threads: t.join()
print "done"
You need to start both the threads first, and then join with them once they are both running.

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