How to limit execution time of a function call in Python

Question

There is a socket related function call in my code, that function is from another module thus out of my control, the problem is that it blocks for hours occasionally, which

Answer 1

I'm not sure how cross-platform this might be, but using signals and alarm might be a good way of looking at this. With a little work you could make this completely generic as well and usable in any situation.

http://docs.python.org/library/signal.html

So your code is going to look something like this.

import signal

def signal_handler(signum, frame):
    raise Exception("Timed out!")

signal.signal(signal.SIGALRM, signal_handler)
signal.alarm(10)   # Ten seconds
try:
    long_function_call()
except Exception, msg:
    print "Timed out!"