Threading Examples

Here are some examples of using thread to run code in sub threads.

General usage

Here are the most common ways to spawn threads.

On-Demand Threads

These threads are created on runtime and are not started automatically. Calling thread.Thread.start() will start the thread immediately.

import time
import thread
 
def my_background_task():
  time.wait(5)
  print('My background task is complete.')
 
worker = thread.Thread(target=my_background_task)
worker.start()
 
print('Started background task.')
 
worker.join() # Halt the main thread until the background thread finishes.
 
# Terminal output:
# > Started background task.
# > My background task is complete.

Decoratored Functions

Decoratored functions automatically spawn new threads and run in the background everytime they are called, simply use thread.threaded to decorate the function.

import time
import thread
 
@thread.threaded
def my_background_task():
  time.wait(5)
  print('My background task is complete.')
 
worker = my_background_task()
print('Started background task.')
 
worker.join()
 
# Terminal output:
# > Started background task.
# > My background task is complete.

Type Safety

Thread supports type annotations for Python 3.9+. This will help your LSP to detect type errors and reduce the risk of runtime errors.

A Simple Example

All that is needed is to annotate the function like you would in Python.

import thread
 
def background_function(x: int) -> int:
  return x + 1
 
worker = Thread(target=background_function, args=(5,))
worker.start()
returned = worker.get_return_value() # int

Examples Parallel Processing