What is the best way to repeatedly execute a function every x seconds?

Question

I want to repeatedly execute a function in Python every 60 seconds forever (just like an NSTimer in Objective C). This code will run as a daemon and is effectively like call

Answer 1

Here's an adapted version to the code from MestreLion. In addition to the original function, this code:

1) add first_interval used to fire the timer at a specific time(caller need to calculate the first_interval and pass in)

2) solve a race-condition in original code. In the original code, if control thread failed to cancel the running timer("Stop the timer, and cancel the execution of the timer’s action. This will only work if the timer is still in its waiting stage." quoted from https://docs.python.org/2/library/threading.html), the timer will run endlessly.

class RepeatedTimer(object):
def __init__(self, first_interval, interval, func, *args, **kwargs):
    self.timer      = None
    self.first_interval = first_interval
    self.interval   = interval
    self.func   = func
    self.args       = args
    self.kwargs     = kwargs
    self.running = False
    self.is_started = False

def first_start(self):
    try:
        # no race-condition here because only control thread will call this method
        # if already started will not start again
        if not self.is_started:
            self.is_started = True
            self.timer = Timer(self.first_interval, self.run)
            self.running = True
            self.timer.start()
    except Exception as e:
        log_print(syslog.LOG_ERR, "timer first_start failed %s %s"%(e.message, traceback.format_exc()))
        raise

def run(self):
    # if not stopped start again
    if self.running:
        self.timer = Timer(self.interval, self.run)
        self.timer.start()
    self.func(*self.args, **self.kwargs)

def stop(self):
    # cancel current timer in case failed it's still OK
    # if already stopped doesn't matter to stop again
    if self.timer:
        self.timer.cancel()
    self.running = False