Timeout on a function call

Question

I\'m calling a function in Python which I know may stall and force me to restart the script.

How do I call the function or what do I wrap it in so that if it takes

Answer 1

I have a different proposal which is a pure function (with the same API as the threading suggestion) and seems to work fine (based on suggestions on this thread)

def timeout(func, args=(), kwargs={}, timeout_duration=1, default=None):
    import signal

    class TimeoutError(Exception):
        pass

    def handler(signum, frame):
        raise TimeoutError()

    # set the timeout handler
    signal.signal(signal.SIGALRM, handler) 
    signal.alarm(timeout_duration)
    try:
        result = func(*args, **kwargs)
    except TimeoutError as exc:
        result = default
    finally:
        signal.alarm(0)

    return result

Answer 2

timeout-decorator don't work on windows system as , windows didn't support signal well.

If you use timeout-decorator in windows system you will get the following

AttributeError: module 'signal' has no attribute 'SIGALRM'

Some suggested to use use_signals=False but didn't worked for me.

Author @bitranox created the following package:

pip install https://github.com/bitranox/wrapt-timeout-decorator/archive/master.zip

Code Sample:

import time
from wrapt_timeout_decorator import *

@timeout(5)
def mytest(message):
    print(message)
    for i in range(1,10):
        time.sleep(1)
        print('{} seconds have passed'.format(i))

def main():
    mytest('starting')


if __name__ == '__main__':
    main()

Gives the following exception:

TimeoutError: Function mytest timed out after 5 seconds

Answer 3

Another solution with asyncio :

import asyncio
import functools
import multiprocessing
from concurrent.futures.thread import ThreadPoolExecutor


class SingletonTimeOut:
    pool = None

    @classmethod
    def run(cls, to_run: functools.partial, timeout: float):
        pool = cls.get_pool()
        loop = cls.get_loop()
        try:
            task = loop.run_in_executor(pool, to_run)
            return loop.run_until_complete(asyncio.wait_for(task, timeout=timeout))
        except asyncio.TimeoutError as e:
            error_type = type(e).__name__ #TODO
            raise e

    @classmethod
    def get_pool(cls):
        if cls.pool is None:
            cls.pool = ThreadPoolExecutor(multiprocessing.cpu_count())
        return cls.pool

    @classmethod
    def get_loop(cls):
        try:
            return asyncio.get_event_loop()
        except RuntimeError:
            asyncio.set_event_loop(asyncio.new_event_loop())
            # print("NEW LOOP" + str(threading.current_thread().ident))
            return asyncio.get_event_loop()

# ---------------

TIME_OUT = float('0.2')  # seconds

def toto(input_items,nb_predictions):
    return 1

to_run = functools.partial(toto,
                           input_items=1,
                           nb_predictions="a")

results = SingletonTimeOut.run(to_run, TIME_OUT)

Answer 4

Building on and and enhancing the answer by @piro , you can build a contextmanager. This allows for very readable code which will disable the alaram signal after a successful run (sets signal.alarm(0))

@contextmanager
def timeout(duration):
    def timeout_handler(signum, frame):
        raise Exception(f'block timedout after {duration} seconds')
    signal.signal(signal.SIGALRM, timeout_handler)
    signal.alarm(duration)
    yield
    signal.alarm(0)

def sleeper(duration):
    time.sleep(duration)
    print('finished')

Example usage:

In [19]: with timeout(2):
    ...:     sleeper(1)
    ...:     
finished

In [20]: with timeout(2):
    ...:     sleeper(3)
    ...:         
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Exception                                 Traceback (most recent call last)
<ipython-input-20-66c78858116f> in <module>()
      1 with timeout(2):
----> 2     sleeper(3)
      3 

<ipython-input-7-a75b966bf7ac> in sleeper(t)
      1 def sleeper(t):
----> 2     time.sleep(t)
      3     print('finished')
      4 

<ipython-input-18-533b9e684466> in timeout_handler(signum, frame)
      2 def timeout(duration):
      3     def timeout_handler(signum, frame):
----> 4         raise Exception(f'block timedout after {duration} seconds')
      5     signal.signal(signal.SIGALRM, timeout_handler)
      6     signal.alarm(duration)

Exception: block timedout after 2 seconds

Answer 5

#!/usr/bin/python2
import sys, subprocess, threading
proc = subprocess.Popen(sys.argv[2:])
timer = threading.Timer(float(sys.argv[1]), proc.terminate)
timer.start()
proc.wait()
timer.cancel()
exit(proc.returncode)

Answer 6

You may use the signal package if you are running on UNIX:

In [1]: import signal

# Register an handler for the timeout
In [2]: def handler(signum, frame):
   ...:     print("Forever is over!")
   ...:     raise Exception("end of time")
   ...: 

# This function *may* run for an indetermined time...
In [3]: def loop_forever():
   ...:     import time
   ...:     while 1:
   ...:         print("sec")
   ...:         time.sleep(1)
   ...:         
   ...:         

# Register the signal function handler
In [4]: signal.signal(signal.SIGALRM, handler)
Out[4]: 0

# Define a timeout for your function
In [5]: signal.alarm(10)
Out[5]: 0

In [6]: try:
   ...:     loop_forever()
   ...: except Exception, exc: 
   ...:     print(exc)
   ....: 
sec
sec
sec
sec
sec
sec
sec
sec
Forever is over!
end of time

# Cancel the timer if the function returned before timeout
# (ok, mine won't but yours maybe will :)
In [7]: signal.alarm(0)
Out[7]: 0

10 seconds after the call signal.alarm(10), the handler is called. This raises an exception that you can intercept from the regular Python code.

This module doesn't play well with threads (but then, who does?)

Note that since we raise an exception when timeout happens, it may end up caught and ignored inside the function, for example of one such function:

def loop_forever():
    while 1:
        print('sec')
        try:
            time.sleep(10)
        except:
            continue