Running one function without stopping another

Question

How can I run a timer while asking for user input from the console? I was reading about multiprocessing, and I tried to use this answer: Python: Executing multiple functions

Answer 1

Instead of using raw_input() use this function taken from here.

def readInput( caption, timeout = 1):
start_time = time.time()
sys.stdout.write('\n%s:'%(caption));
input = ''
while True:
    if msvcrt.kbhit():
        chr = msvcrt.getche()
        if ord(chr) == 13: # enter_key
            break
        elif ord(chr) >= 32: #space_char
            input += chr
    if len(input) == 0 and (time.time() - start_time) > timeout:
        break

print ''  # needed to move to next line
if len(input) > 0:
    return input
else:
    return ""

Thearding option

To make sure that both functions run completely simultaneously you can use this example of threading event:

import threading
event = threading.Event()
th = theading.Thread(target=start_timer, args=(event, ))
th1 = theading.Thread(target=cut_wire, args=(event, ))
th.start()
th1.start()
th.join()
th1.join()

In your function you can set an event using event.set(), check it using event.is_set() and clear it using event.clear().