implementing function timeout in python

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At many times we wished if we could break and/or continue a python function when the function takes a lot of time to complete. We can achieve this using signal and time modules. 

[root@dockerhost ~]# cat test.py

#!/usr/bin/python

import re

import signal

import time

import sys

def timeoutHandler(signum,frame):

  raise Exception("Timeout")

"""Set alarm timer to 10s"""

signal.signal(signal.SIGALRM, timeoutHandler)

signal.alarm(10)

"""The try block will timeout if it couldn't finish it under 10s"""

try:

  time.sleep(int(sys.argv[1]))

  if re.search('abc','abcd',re.I|re.M):

    print("yaay!")

except Exception, e:

    print(e)

finally:

  """To cancel the scheduled alarm"""

  signal.alarm(0)

[root@dockerhost ~]# ./test.py 5

yaay!

[root@dockerhost ~]# ./test.py 15

Timeout

[root@dockerhost ~]#