How can I use threading in Python?

Question

I am trying to understand threading in Python. I\'ve looked at the documentation and examples, but quite frankly, many examples are overly sophisticated and I\'m having trou

Answer 1

Here is multi threading with a simple example which will be helpful. You can run it and understand easily how multi threading is working in Python. I used a lock for preventing access to other threads until the previous threads finished their work. By the use of this line of code,

tLock = threading.BoundedSemaphore(value=4)

you can allow a number of processes at a time and keep hold to the rest of the threads which will run later or after finished previous processes.

import threading
import time

#tLock = threading.Lock()
tLock = threading.BoundedSemaphore(value=4)
def timer(name, delay, repeat):
    print  "\r\nTimer: ", name, " Started"
    tLock.acquire()
    print "\r\n", name, " has the acquired the lock"
    while repeat > 0:
        time.sleep(delay)
        print "\r\n", name, ": ", str(time.ctime(time.time()))
        repeat -= 1

    print "\r\n", name, " is releaseing the lock"
    tLock.release()
    print "\r\nTimer: ", name, " Completed"

def Main():
    t1 = threading.Thread(target=timer, args=("Timer1", 2, 5))
    t2 = threading.Thread(target=timer, args=("Timer2", 3, 5))
    t3 = threading.Thread(target=timer, args=("Timer3", 4, 5))
    t4 = threading.Thread(target=timer, args=("Timer4", 5, 5))
    t5 = threading.Thread(target=timer, args=("Timer5", 0.1, 5))

    t1.start()
    t2.start()
    t3.start()
    t4.start()
    t5.start()

    print "\r\nMain Complete"

if __name__ == "__main__":
    Main()