[python] How to stop a looping thread in Python?

What's the proper way to tell a looping thread to stop looping?

I have a fairly simple program that pings a specified host in a separate threading.Thread class. In this class it sleeps 60 seconds, the runs again until the application quits.

I'd like to implement a 'Stop' button in my wx.Frame to ask the looping thread to stop. It doesn't need to end the thread right away, it can just stop looping once it wakes up.

Here is my threading class (note: I haven't implemented looping yet, but it would likely fall under the run method in PingAssets)

class PingAssets(threading.Thread):
    def __init__(self, threadNum, asset, window):
        threading.Thread.__init__(self)
        self.threadNum = threadNum
        self.window = window
        self.asset = asset

    def run(self):
        config = controller.getConfig()
        fmt = config['timefmt']
        start_time = datetime.now().strftime(fmt)
        try:
            if onlinecheck.check_status(self.asset):
                status = "online"
            else:
                status = "offline"
        except socket.gaierror:
            status = "an invalid asset tag."
        msg =("{}: {} is {}.   \n".format(start_time, self.asset, status))
        wx.CallAfter(self.window.Logger, msg)

And in my wxPyhton Frame I have this function called from a Start button:

def CheckAsset(self, asset):
        self.count += 1
        thread = PingAssets(self.count, asset, self)
        self.threads.append(thread)
        thread.start()

My solution is:

import threading, time

def a():
    t = threading.currentThread()
    while getattr(t, "do_run", True):
    print('Do something')
    time.sleep(1)

def getThreadByName(name):
    threads = threading.enumerate() #Threads list
    for thread in threads:
        if thread.name == name:
            return thread

threading.Thread(target=a, name='228').start() #Init thread
t = getThreadByName('228') #Get thread by name
time.sleep(5)
t.do_run = False #Signal to stop thread
t.join()

This has been asked before on Stack. See the following links:

• Is there any way to kill a Thread in Python?
• Stopping a thread after a certain amount of time

Basically you just need to set up the thread with a stop function that sets a sentinel value that the thread will check. In your case, you'll have the something in your loop check the sentinel value to see if it's changed and if it has, the loop can break and the thread can die.

I read the other questions on Stack but I was still a little confused on communicating across classes. Here is how I approached it:

I use a list to hold all my threads in the __init__ method of my wxFrame class: self.threads = []

As recommended in How to stop a looping thread in Python? I use a signal in my thread class which is set to True when initializing the threading class.

class PingAssets(threading.Thread):
    def __init__(self, threadNum, asset, window):
        threading.Thread.__init__(self)
        self.threadNum = threadNum
        self.window = window
        self.asset = asset
        self.signal = True

    def run(self):
        while self.signal:
             do_stuff()
             sleep()

and I can stop these threads by iterating over my threads:

def OnStop(self, e):
        for t in self.threads:
            t.signal = False

I find it useful to have a class, derived from threading.Thread, to encapsulate my thread functionality. You simply provide your own main loop in an overridden version of run() in this class. Calling start() arranges for the object’s run() method to be invoked in a separate thread.

Inside the main loop, periodically check whether a threading.Event has been set. Such an event is thread-safe.

Inside this class, you have your own join() method that sets the stop event object before calling the join() method of the base class. It can optionally take a time value to pass to the base class's join() method to ensure your thread is terminated in a short amount of time.

import threading
import time

class MyThread(threading.Thread):
    def __init__(self, sleep_time=0.1):
        self._stop_event = threading.Event()
        self._sleep_time = sleep_time
        """call base class constructor"""
        super().__init__()

    def run(self):
        """main control loop"""
        while not self._stop_event.isSet():
            #do work
            print("hi")
            self._stop_event.wait(self._sleep_time)

    def join(self, timeout=None):
        """set stop event and join within a given time period"""
        self._stop_event.set()
        super().join(timeout)


if __name__ == "__main__":
    t = MyThread()
    t.start()

    time.sleep(5)

    t.join(1) #wait 1s max

Having a small sleep inside the main loop before checking the threading.Event is less CPU intensive than looping continuously. You can have a default sleep time (e.g. 0.1s), but you can also pass the value in the constructor.

I had a different approach. I've sub-classed a Thread class and in the constructor I've created an Event object. Then I've written custom join() method, which first sets this event and then calls a parent's version of itself.

Here is my class, I'm using for serial port communication in wxPython app:

import wx, threading, serial, Events, Queue

class PumpThread(threading.Thread):

    def __init__ (self, port, queue, parent):
        super(PumpThread, self).__init__()
        self.port = port
        self.queue = queue
        self.parent = parent

        self.serial = serial.Serial()
        self.serial.port = self.port
        self.serial.timeout = 0.5
        self.serial.baudrate = 9600
        self.serial.parity = 'N'

        self.stopRequest = threading.Event()

    def run (self):
        try:
            self.serial.open()
        except Exception, ex:
            print ("[ERROR]\tUnable to open port {}".format(self.port))
            print ("[ERROR]\t{}\n\n{}".format(ex.message, ex.traceback))
            self.stopRequest.set()
        else:
            print ("[INFO]\tListening port {}".format(self.port))
            self.serial.write("FLOW?\r")

        while not self.stopRequest.isSet():
            msg = ''
            if not self.queue.empty():
                try:
                    command = self.queue.get()
                    self.serial.write(command)
                except Queue.Empty:
                    continue

            while self.serial.inWaiting():
                char = self.serial.read(1)
                if '\r' in char and len(msg) > 1:
                    char = ''
                    #~ print('[DATA]\t{}'.format(msg))
                    event = Events.PumpDataEvent(Events.SERIALRX, wx.ID_ANY, msg)
                    wx.PostEvent(self.parent, event)
                    msg = ''
                    break
                msg += char
        self.serial.close()

    def join (self, timeout=None):
        self.stopRequest.set()
        super(PumpThread, self).join(timeout)

    def SetPort (self, serial):
        self.serial = serial

    def Write (self, msg):
        if self.serial.is_open:
            self.queue.put(msg)
        else:
            print("[ERROR]\tPort {} is not open!".format(self.port))

    def Stop(self):
        if self.isAlive():
            self.join()

The Queue is used for sending messages to the port and main loop takes responses back. I've used no serial.readline() method, because of different end-line char, and I have found the usage of io classes to be too much fuss.

Depends on what you run in that thread. If that's your code, then you can implement a stop condition (see other answers).

However, if what you want is to run someone else's code, then you should fork and start a process. Like this:

import multiprocessing
proc = multiprocessing.Process(target=your_proc_function, args=())
proc.start()

now, whenever you want to stop that process, send it a SIGTERM like this:

proc.terminate()
proc.join()

And it's not slow: fractions of a second. Enjoy :)