How can I make a time delay in Python

Question

I would like to know how to put a time delay in a Python script

User · Answer

While everyone else has suggested the de facto time module, I thought I'd share a different method using matplotlib's pyplot function, pause.

An example

from matplotlib import pyplot as plt
plt.pause(5)    # Pauses the program for 5 seconds

Typically this is used to prevent the plot from disappearing as soon as it is plotted or to make crude animations.

This would save you an import if you already have matplotlib imported.

User · Answer

You also can try this   import time   The time now start   time time    while time time   - start  lt  10    Run 1- seconds     pass   Do the job   Now the shell will not crash or not react

User · Answer

The Tkinter library in the Python standard library is an interactive tool which you can import  Basically  you can create buttons and boxes and popups and stuff that appear as windows which you manipulate with code   If you use Tkinter  do not use time sleep    because it will muck up your program  This happened to me  Instead  use root after   and replace the values for however many seconds  with a milliseconds  For example  time sleep 1  is equivalent to root after 1000  in Tkinter   Otherwise  time sleep    which many answers have pointed out  which is the way to go

User · Answer

import time time sleep 5      Delays for 5 seconds  You can also use a float value    Here is another example where something is run approximately once a minute   import time while True      print  This prints once a minute        time sleep 60    Delay for 1 minute  60 seconds

User · Answer

This is an easy example of a time delay   import time  def delay period  5          If the user enters nothing  it ll wait 5 seconds     try            If the user not enters a int  I ll just return            time sleep period      except          return      Another  in Tkinter   import tkinter  def tick        pass  root   Tk   delay   100   Time in milliseconds root after delay  tick  root mainloop

User · Answer

Delays can be also implemented by using the following methods   The first method   import time time sleep 5    Delay for 5 seconds    The second method to delay would be using the implicit wait method    driver implicitly wait 5    The third method is more useful when you have to wait until a particular action is completed or until an element is found   self wait until EC presence of element located  By ID   UserName

User · Answer

asyncio sleep  Notice in recent Python versions  Python nbsp 3 4 or higher  you can use asyncio sleep  It s related to asynchronous programming and asyncio  Check out next example   import asyncio from datetime import datetime   asyncio coroutine def countdown iteration name  countdown sec               Just count for some countdown sec seconds and do nothing else             while countdown sec  gt  0         print f  iteration name  iterates   countdown sec  seconds          yield from asyncio sleep 1         countdown sec -  1  loop   asyncio get event loop   tasks    asyncio ensure future countdown  First Count   2             asyncio ensure future countdown  Second Count   3     start time   datetime utcnow      Run both methods  How much time will both run     loop run until complete asyncio wait tasks    loop close    print f total running time   datetime utcnow   - start time      We may think it will  sleep  for 2 seconds for first method and then 3 seconds in the second method  a total of 5 seconds running time of this code  But it will print   total running time  0 00 03 01286   It is recommended to read asyncio official documentation for more details

User · Answer

There are five methods which I know  time sleep    pygame time wait    matplotlib s pyplot pause     after    and asyncio sleep     time sleep   example  do not use if using tkinter   import time print  Hello   time sleep 5    Number of seconds print  Bye     pygame time wait   example  not recommended if you are not using the pygame window  but you could exit the window instantly   import pygame   If you are going to use the time module   don t do  quot from pygame import   quot  pygame init   print  Hello   pygame time wait 5000    Milliseconds print  Bye     matplotlib s function pyplot pause   example  not recommended if you are not using the graph  but you could exit the graph instantly   import matplotlib print  Hello   matplotlib pyplot pause 5    Seconds print  Bye     The  after   method  best with Tkinter   import tkinter as tk   Tkinter for Python amp nbsp 2 root   tk Tk   print  Hello   def ohhi        print  Oh  hi    root after 5000  ohhi    Milliseconds and then a function print  Bye     Finally  the asyncio sleep   method  import asyncio asyncio sleep 5

User · Answer

There are five methods which I know  time sleep    pygame time wait    matplotlib s pyplot pause     after    and asyncio sleep     time sleep   example  do not use if using tkinter   import time print  Hello   time sleep 5    Number of seconds print  Bye     pygame time wait   example  not recommended if you are not using the pygame window  but you could exit the window instantly   import pygame   If you are going to use the time module   don t do  quot from pygame import   quot  pygame init   print  Hello   pygame time wait 5000    Milliseconds print  Bye     matplotlib s function pyplot pause   example  not recommended if you are not using the graph  but you could exit the graph instantly   import matplotlib print  Hello   matplotlib pyplot pause 5    Seconds print  Bye     The  after   method  best with Tkinter   import tkinter as tk   Tkinter for Python amp nbsp 2 root   tk Tk   print  Hello   def ohhi        print  Oh  hi    root after 5000  ohhi    Milliseconds and then a function print  Bye     Finally  the asyncio sleep   method  import asyncio asyncio sleep 5

User · Answer

You also can try this   import time   The time now start   time time    while time time   - start  lt  10    Run 1- seconds     pass   Do the job   Now the shell will not crash or not react

User · Answer

If you would like to put a time delay in a Python script   Use time sleep or Event   wait like this   from threading import Event from time import sleep  delay in sec   2    Use time sleep like this sleep delay in sec            Returns None print f slept for  delay in sec  seconds      Or use Event   wait like this Event   wait delay in sec     Returns False print f waited for  delay in sec  seconds     However  if you want to delay the execution of a function do this   Use threading Timer like this   from threading import Timer  delay in sec   2  def hello delay in sec       print f function called after  delay in sec  seconds    t   Timer delay in sec  hello   delay in sec      Hello function will be called 2 seconds later with  delay in sec  as the  args parameter t start      Returns None print  Started     Outputs   Started function called after 2 seconds   Why use the later approach    It does not stop execution of the whole script  except for the function you pass it   After starting the timer you can also stop it by doing timer obj cancel

User · Answer

While everyone else has suggested the de facto time module, I thought I'd share a different method using matplotlib's pyplot function, pause.

An example

from matplotlib import pyplot as plt
plt.pause(5)    # Pauses the program for 5 seconds

Typically this is used to prevent the plot from disappearing as soon as it is plotted or to make crude animations.

This would save you an import if you already have matplotlib imported.

User · Answer

import time time sleep 5      Delays for 5 seconds  You can also use a float value    Here is another example where something is run approximately once a minute   import time while True      print  This prints once a minute        time sleep 60    Delay for 1 minute  60 seconds

User · Answer

A bit of fun with a sleepy generator   The question is about time delay  It can be fixed time  but in some cases we might need a delay measured since last time  Here is one possible solution   Delay measured since last time  waking up regularly   The situation can be  we want to do something as regularly as possible and we do not want to bother with all the last time  next time stuff all around our code   Buzzer generator  The following code  sleepy py  defines a buzzergen generator   import time from itertools import count  def buzzergen period       nexttime   time time     period     for i in count            now   time time           tosleep   nexttime - now         if tosleep  gt  0              time sleep tosleep              nexttime    period         else              nexttime   now   period         yield i  nexttime   Invoking regular buzzergen  from sleepy import buzzergen import time buzzer   buzzergen 3    Planning to wake up each 3 seconds print time time   buzzer next   print time time   time sleep 2  buzzer next   print time time   time sleep 5    Sleeping a bit longer than usually buzzer next   print time time   buzzer next   print time time     And running it we see   1400102636 46 1400102639 46 1400102642 46 1400102647 47 1400102650 47   We can also use it directly in a loop   import random for ring in buzzergen 3       print  now   time time       print  ring   ring     time sleep random choice  0  2  4  6      And running it we might see   now 1400102751 46 ring  0  1400102754 461676  now 1400102754 46 ring  1  1400102757 461676  now 1400102757 46 ring  2  1400102760 461676  now 1400102760 46 ring  3  1400102763 461676  now 1400102766 47 ring  4  1400102769 47115  now 1400102769 47 ring  5  1400102772 47115  now 1400102772 47 ring  6  1400102775 47115  now 1400102775 47 ring  7  1400102778 47115    As we see  this buzzer is not too rigid and allow us to catch up with regular sleepy intervals even if we oversleep and get out of regular schedule

User · Answer

import time time sleep 5      Delays for 5 seconds  You can also use a float value    Here is another example where something is run approximately once a minute   import time while True      print  This prints once a minute        time sleep 60    Delay for 1 minute  60 seconds

User · Answer

Delays are done with the time library  specifically the time sleep   function   To just make it wait for a second   from time import sleep sleep 1    This works because by doing   from time import sleep   You extract the sleep function only from the time library  which means you can just call it with   sleep seconds    Rather than having to type out  time sleep     Which is awkwardly long to type   With this method  you wouldn t get access to the other features of the time library and you can t have a variable called sleep  But you could create a variable called time   Doing from  library  import  function      function2   is great if you just want certain parts of a module   You could equally do it as   import time time sleep 1    and you would have access to the other features of the time library like time clock   as long as you type time  function     but you couldn t create the variable time because it would overwrite the import  A solution to this to do  import time as t   which would allow you to reference the time library as t  allowing you to do   t sleep     This works on any library

User · Answer

How can I make a time delay in Python    In a single thread I suggest the sleep function    gt  gt  gt  from time import sleep   gt  gt  gt  sleep 4    This function actually suspends the processing of the thread in which it is called by the operating system  allowing other threads and processes to execute while it sleeps   Use it for that purpose  or simply to delay a function from executing  For example    gt  gt  gt  def party time            print  hooray         gt  gt  gt  sleep 3   party time   hooray     hooray   is printed 3 seconds after I hit Enter   Example using sleep with multiple threads and processes  Again  sleep suspends your thread - it uses next to zero processing power   To demonstrate  create a script like this  I first attempted this in an interactive Python 3 5 shell  but sub-processes can t find the party later function for some reason    from concurrent futures import ThreadPoolExecutor  ProcessPoolExecutor  as completed from time import sleep  time  def party later kind     n          sleep 3      return kind   n     party time         name    def main        with ProcessPoolExecutor   as proc executor          with ThreadPoolExecutor   as thread executor              start time   time               proc future1   proc executor submit party later  kind  proc   n  1               proc future2   proc executor submit party later  kind  proc   n  2               thread future1   thread executor submit party later  kind  thread   n  1               thread future2   thread executor submit party later  kind  thread   n  2               for f in as completed                 proc future1  proc future2  thread future1  thread future2                     print f result                end time   time       print  total time to execute four 3-sec functions    end time - start time   if   name         main         main     Example output from this script   thread1 party time     main   thread2 party time     main   proc1 party time     mp main   proc2 party time     mp main   total time to execute four 3-sec functions  3 4519670009613037   Multithreading  You can trigger a function to be called at a later time in a separate thread with the Timer threading object    gt  gt  gt  from threading import Timer  gt  gt  gt  t   Timer 3  party time  args None  kwargs None   gt  gt  gt  t start    gt  gt  gt   gt  gt  gt  hooray    gt  gt  gt    The blank line illustrates that the function printed to my standard output  and I had to hit Enter to ensure I was on a prompt   The upside of this method is that while the Timer thread was waiting  I was able to do other things  in this case  hitting Enter one time - before the function executed  see the first empty prompt    There isn t a respective object in the multiprocessing library  You can create one  but it probably doesn t exist for a reason  A sub-thread makes a lot more sense for a simple timer than a whole new subprocess

User · Answer

The Tkinter library in the Python standard library is an interactive tool which you can import  Basically  you can create buttons and boxes and popups and stuff that appear as windows which you manipulate with code   If you use Tkinter  do not use time sleep    because it will muck up your program  This happened to me  Instead  use root after   and replace the values for however many seconds  with a milliseconds  For example  time sleep 1  is equivalent to root after 1000  in Tkinter   Otherwise  time sleep    which many answers have pointed out  which is the way to go

User · Answer

A bit of fun with a sleepy generator   The question is about time delay  It can be fixed time  but in some cases we might need a delay measured since last time  Here is one possible solution   Delay measured since last time  waking up regularly   The situation can be  we want to do something as regularly as possible and we do not want to bother with all the last time  next time stuff all around our code   Buzzer generator  The following code  sleepy py  defines a buzzergen generator   import time from itertools import count  def buzzergen period       nexttime   time time     period     for i in count            now   time time           tosleep   nexttime - now         if tosleep  gt  0              time sleep tosleep              nexttime    period         else              nexttime   now   period         yield i  nexttime   Invoking regular buzzergen  from sleepy import buzzergen import time buzzer   buzzergen 3    Planning to wake up each 3 seconds print time time   buzzer next   print time time   time sleep 2  buzzer next   print time time   time sleep 5    Sleeping a bit longer than usually buzzer next   print time time   buzzer next   print time time     And running it we see   1400102636 46 1400102639 46 1400102642 46 1400102647 47 1400102650 47   We can also use it directly in a loop   import random for ring in buzzergen 3       print  now   time time       print  ring   ring     time sleep random choice  0  2  4  6      And running it we might see   now 1400102751 46 ring  0  1400102754 461676  now 1400102754 46 ring  1  1400102757 461676  now 1400102757 46 ring  2  1400102760 461676  now 1400102760 46 ring  3  1400102763 461676  now 1400102766 47 ring  4  1400102769 47115  now 1400102769 47 ring  5  1400102772 47115  now 1400102772 47 ring  6  1400102775 47115  now 1400102775 47 ring  7  1400102778 47115    As we see  this buzzer is not too rigid and allow us to catch up with regular sleepy intervals even if we oversleep and get out of regular schedule

User · Answer

You can use the sleep   function in the time module  It can take a float argument for sub-second resolution   from time import sleep sleep 0 1    Time in seconds

User · Answer

Delays are done with the time library  specifically the time sleep   function   To just make it wait for a second   from time import sleep sleep 1    This works because by doing   from time import sleep   You extract the sleep function only from the time library  which means you can just call it with   sleep seconds    Rather than having to type out  time sleep     Which is awkwardly long to type   With this method  you wouldn t get access to the other features of the time library and you can t have a variable called sleep  But you could create a variable called time   Doing from  library  import  function      function2   is great if you just want certain parts of a module   You could equally do it as   import time time sleep 1    and you would have access to the other features of the time library like time clock   as long as you type time  function     but you couldn t create the variable time because it would overwrite the import  A solution to this to do  import time as t   which would allow you to reference the time library as t  allowing you to do   t sleep     This works on any library

User · Answer

You can use the sleep   function in the time module  It can take a float argument for sub-second resolution   from time import sleep sleep 0 1    Time in seconds

User · Answer

How can I make a time delay in Python    In a single thread I suggest the sleep function    gt  gt  gt  from time import sleep   gt  gt  gt  sleep 4    This function actually suspends the processing of the thread in which it is called by the operating system  allowing other threads and processes to execute while it sleeps   Use it for that purpose  or simply to delay a function from executing  For example    gt  gt  gt  def party time            print  hooray         gt  gt  gt  sleep 3   party time   hooray     hooray   is printed 3 seconds after I hit Enter   Example using sleep with multiple threads and processes  Again  sleep suspends your thread - it uses next to zero processing power   To demonstrate  create a script like this  I first attempted this in an interactive Python 3 5 shell  but sub-processes can t find the party later function for some reason    from concurrent futures import ThreadPoolExecutor  ProcessPoolExecutor  as completed from time import sleep  time  def party later kind     n          sleep 3      return kind   n     party time         name    def main        with ProcessPoolExecutor   as proc executor          with ThreadPoolExecutor   as thread executor              start time   time               proc future1   proc executor submit party later  kind  proc   n  1               proc future2   proc executor submit party later  kind  proc   n  2               thread future1   thread executor submit party later  kind  thread   n  1               thread future2   thread executor submit party later  kind  thread   n  2               for f in as completed                 proc future1  proc future2  thread future1  thread future2                     print f result                end time   time       print  total time to execute four 3-sec functions    end time - start time   if   name         main         main     Example output from this script   thread1 party time     main   thread2 party time     main   proc1 party time     mp main   proc2 party time     mp main   total time to execute four 3-sec functions  3 4519670009613037   Multithreading  You can trigger a function to be called at a later time in a separate thread with the Timer threading object    gt  gt  gt  from threading import Timer  gt  gt  gt  t   Timer 3  party time  args None  kwargs None   gt  gt  gt  t start    gt  gt  gt   gt  gt  gt  hooray    gt  gt  gt    The blank line illustrates that the function printed to my standard output  and I had to hit Enter to ensure I was on a prompt   The upside of this method is that while the Timer thread was waiting  I was able to do other things  in this case  hitting Enter one time - before the function executed  see the first empty prompt    There isn t a respective object in the multiprocessing library  You can create one  but it probably doesn t exist for a reason  A sub-thread makes a lot more sense for a simple timer than a whole new subprocess

User · Answer

Delays can be also implemented by using the following methods   The first method   import time time sleep 5    Delay for 5 seconds    The second method to delay would be using the implicit wait method    driver implicitly wait 5    The third method is more useful when you have to wait until a particular action is completed or until an element is found   self wait until EC presence of element located  By ID   UserName

User · Answer

This is an easy example of a time delay   import time  def delay period  5          If the user enters nothing  it ll wait 5 seconds     try            If the user not enters a int  I ll just return            time sleep period      except          return      Another  in Tkinter   import tkinter  def tick        pass  root   Tk   delay   100   Time in milliseconds root after delay  tick  root mainloop

User · Answer

asyncio sleep  Notice in recent Python versions  Python nbsp 3 4 or higher  you can use asyncio sleep  It s related to asynchronous programming and asyncio  Check out next example   import asyncio from datetime import datetime   asyncio coroutine def countdown iteration name  countdown sec               Just count for some countdown sec seconds and do nothing else             while countdown sec  gt  0         print f  iteration name  iterates   countdown sec  seconds          yield from asyncio sleep 1         countdown sec -  1  loop   asyncio get event loop   tasks    asyncio ensure future countdown  First Count   2             asyncio ensure future countdown  Second Count   3     start time   datetime utcnow      Run both methods  How much time will both run     loop run until complete asyncio wait tasks    loop close    print f total running time   datetime utcnow   - start time      We may think it will  sleep  for 2 seconds for first method and then 3 seconds in the second method  a total of 5 seconds running time of this code  But it will print   total running time  0 00 03 01286   It is recommended to read asyncio official documentation for more details

User · Answer

If you would like to put a time delay in a Python script   Use time sleep or Event   wait like this   from threading import Event from time import sleep  delay in sec   2    Use time sleep like this sleep delay in sec            Returns None print f slept for  delay in sec  seconds      Or use Event   wait like this Event   wait delay in sec     Returns False print f waited for  delay in sec  seconds     However  if you want to delay the execution of a function do this   Use threading Timer like this   from threading import Timer  delay in sec   2  def hello delay in sec       print f function called after  delay in sec  seconds    t   Timer delay in sec  hello   delay in sec      Hello function will be called 2 seconds later with  delay in sec  as the  args parameter t start      Returns None print  Started     Outputs   Started function called after 2 seconds   Why use the later approach    It does not stop execution of the whole script  except for the function you pass it   After starting the timer you can also stop it by doing timer obj cancel

User · Answer

You can use the sleep   function in the time module  It can take a float argument for sub-second resolution   from time import sleep sleep 0 1    Time in seconds

User · Answer

import time time sleep 5      Delays for 5 seconds  You can also use a float value    Here is another example where something is run approximately once a minute   import time while True      print  This prints once a minute        time sleep 60    Delay for 1 minute  60 seconds

User · Answer

You can use the sleep   function in the time module  It can take a float argument for sub-second resolution   from time import sleep sleep 0 1    Time in seconds

[python] How can I make a time delay in Python?

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