How to Stop a Python Program After a Certain Period of Time

In Python programming, there might be certain scenarios where you would want your program to stop after a set duration.

This could be useful when you are running a task that could potentially take up too much time and you want to automatically terminate it if it surpasses a stipulated time limit.

Today, we are going to walk you through how to automatically end a Python program after a certain period of time.

Step 1: Import Required Libraries

The first step is to import the required Python libraries that enable us to implement time constraints. In this case, we are going to use the threading and time library.

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import threading
import time

Step 3: Define a Function to Execute

For our program, we are going to define a simple function. This function would typically be a task you want your Python program to perform. Here, our function will just print Hello, World! continuously every second.

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def function_to_exec():
    while not stop_thread:
        print('Hello, World!')
        time.sleep(1)

Step 3: Define Your Stop Function

Next, we define a function that will stop our previously defined function after a certain period.

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def stop_function_after(delay):
    global stop_thread  # Access the global flag
    time.sleep(delay)
    stop_thread = True

Step 4: Execute the Function with a Defined Stop Time

Now, we can execute our function and stop it after a defined time. We’ll keep the duration as 5 seconds here.

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thread = threading.Thread(target=function_to_exec)
thread.start()
stop_function_after(5)

Complete Code

The full code of our Python program to stop after a set period is as follows:

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import threading
import time
 
# Create a flag to control the thread
stop_thread = False
 
def function_to_exec():
    while not stop_thread:
        print('Hello, World!')
        time.sleep(1)
 
def stop_function_after(delay):
    global stop_thread  # Access the global flag
    time.sleep(delay)
    stop_thread = True
 
thread = threading.Thread(target=function_to_exec)
thread.start()
stop_function_after(5)
 

Conclusion

That’s it! With these steps, you can easily setup an automatic termination for a Python program after a certain period of time.

This is especially helpful in instances where you are running a task that might potentially run indefinitely or take up too much time. Use this tutorial as your guide to automate your tasks intelligently.