thread control clean

An example of an idiom for controling threads

Doug Fort
http://www.dougfort.net
"""

import threading

class TestThread(threading.Thread):
"""
A sample thread class
"""

def __init__(self):
"""
Constructor, setting initial variables
"""
self._stopevent = threading.Event()
self._sleepperiod = 1.0

threading.Thread.__init__(self, name="TestThread")

def run(self):
"""
overload of threading.thread.run()
main control loop
"""
print "%s starts" % (self.getName(),)

count = 0
while not self._stopevent.isSet():
count += 1
print "loop %d" % (count,)
self._stopevent.wait(self._sleepperiod)

print "%s ends" % (self.getName(),)

def join(self,timeout=None):
"""
Stop the thread
"""
self._stopevent.set()
threading.Thread.join(self, timeout)

if __name__ == "__main__":
testthread = TestThread()
testthread.start()

import time
time.sleep(10.0)

testthread.join()