Cross-platform time out decorator

[Tim Golden]

Steve Holden wrote:
> Joel wrote:
>> On Sep 27, 4:36 pm, Hrvoje Niksic <hnik... at xemacs.org> wrote:
>>> Joel <joel.schae... 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.
>> There should be a method to stop the thread though? I've never
>> programmed thread stuff in python and wasn't able to find how to do
>> it, would you happen to know how to "kill" the timed out thread?
>>
> There is no way to "kill" a thread, other than set a flag and have the 
> thread read it to realise the main thread wants it to stop.

This is more-or-less why I suggested earlier that you wouldn't
find anything straightforward. The signal mechanism, as far as
I know, is pretty much unique in terms of the support it gets
from the OS and the language combined. Any other solution will
end up papering over cracks.

TJG