Cross-platform time out decorator

[Hrvoje Niksic]

Joel <joel.schaerer at gmail.com> writes:

> I found the solution :
> http://aspn.activestate.com/ASPN/Cookbook/Python/Recipe/440569
> describes a solution based on threads. I tested it and it works
> perfectly.

Note that, unlike the original alarm code, it doesn't really interrupt
the timed-out method, it just returns the control back to the caller,
using an exception to mark that a timeout occurred.  The "timed out"
code is still merrily running in the background.  I don't know if it's
a problem in your case, but it's an important drawback.