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

e.g., Display current local time

import datetime
import glib
import logger

def get_local_time():
    current_time = datetime.datetime.now().strftime("%H:%M")
    logger.info("get_local_time(): %s",current_time)
    return str(current_time)

def display_local_time():
    logger.info("Current time is: %s", get_local_time())
    return True

# call every minute
glib.timeout_add(60*1000, display_local_time)

Answer 2

I faced a similar problem some time back. May be http://cronus.readthedocs.org might help?

For v0.2, the following snippet works

import cronus.beat as beat

beat.set_rate(2) # 2 Hz
while beat.true():
    # do some time consuming work here
    beat.sleep() # total loop duration would be 0.5 sec

Answer 3

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

Answer 4

Here is another solution without using any extra libaries.

def delay_until(condition_fn, interval_in_sec, timeout_in_sec):
    """Delay using a boolean callable function.

    `condition_fn` is invoked every `interval_in_sec` until `timeout_in_sec`.
    It can break early if condition is met.

    Args:
        condition_fn     - a callable boolean function
        interval_in_sec  - wait time between calling `condition_fn`
        timeout_in_sec   - maximum time to run

    Returns: None
    """
    start = last_call = time.time()
    while time.time() - start < timeout_in_sec:
        if (time.time() - last_call) > interval_in_sec:
            if condition_fn() is True:
                break
            last_call = time.time()

Answer 5

I use this to cause 60 events per hour with most events occurring at the same number of seconds after the whole minute:

import math
import time
import random

TICK = 60 # one minute tick size
TICK_TIMING = 59 # execute on 59th second of the tick
TICK_MINIMUM = 30 # minimum catch up tick size when lagging

def set_timing():

    now = time.time()
    elapsed = now - info['begin']
    minutes = math.floor(elapsed/TICK)
    tick_elapsed = now - info['completion_time']
    if (info['tick']+1) > minutes:
        wait = max(0,(TICK_TIMING-(time.time() % TICK)))
        print ('standard wait: %.2f' % wait)
        time.sleep(wait)
    elif tick_elapsed < TICK_MINIMUM:
        wait = TICK_MINIMUM-tick_elapsed
        print ('minimum wait: %.2f' % wait)
        time.sleep(wait)
    else:
        print ('skip set_timing(); no wait')
    drift = ((time.time() - info['begin']) - info['tick']*TICK -
        TICK_TIMING + info['begin']%TICK)
    print ('drift: %.6f' % drift)

info['tick'] = 0
info['begin'] = time.time()
info['completion_time'] = info['begin'] - TICK

while 1:

    set_timing()

    print('hello world')

    #random real world event
    time.sleep(random.random()*TICK_MINIMUM)

    info['tick'] += 1
    info['completion_time'] = time.time()

Depending upon actual conditions you might get ticks of length:

60,60,62,58,60,60,120,30,30,60,60,60,60,60...etc.

but at the end of 60 minutes you'll have 60 ticks; and most of them will occur at the correct offset to the minute you prefer.

On my system I get typical drift of < 1/20th of a second until need for correction arises.

The advantage of this method is resolution of clock drift; which can cause issues if you're doing things like appending one item per tick and you expect 60 items appended per hour. Failure to account for drift can cause secondary indications like moving averages to consider data too deep into the past resulting in faulty output.

Answer 6

Lock your time loop to the system clock like this:

import time
starttime = time.time()
while True:
    print "tick"
    time.sleep(60.0 - ((time.time() - starttime) % 60.0))