Here's an update to the code from MestreLion that avoids drifiting over time.
The RepeatedTimer class here calls the given function every "interval" seconds as requested by the OP; the schedule doesn't depend on how long the function takes to execute. I like this solution since it doesn't have external library dependencies; this is just pure python.
import threading
import time
class RepeatedTimer(object):
def __init__(self, interval, function, *args, **kwargs):
self._timer = None
self.interval = interval
self.function = function
self.args = args
self.kwargs = kwargs
self.is_running = False
self.next_call = time.time()
self.start()
def _run(self):
self.is_running = False
self.start()
self.function(*self.args, **self.kwargs)
def start(self):
if not self.is_running:
self.next_call += self.interval
self._timer = threading.Timer(self.next_call - time.time(), self._run)
self._timer.start()
self.is_running = True
def stop(self):
self._timer.cancel()
self.is_running = False
Sample usage (copied from MestreLion's answer):
from time import sleep
def hello(name):
print "Hello %s!" % name
print "starting..."
rt = RepeatedTimer(1, hello, "World") # it auto-starts, no need of rt.start()
try:
sleep(5) # your long-running job goes here...
finally:
rt.stop() # better in a try/finally block to make sure the program ends!