How to retry something with a timeout in Python?

[Scott David Daniels]

tinnews at isbd.co.uk wrote:
> This feels like it should be simple but I can't see a clean way of
> doing it at the moment.
> 
> I want to retry locking a file for a number of times and then give up,
> in pseudo-code it would be something like:-
> 
> 
>     for N times
>         try to lock file
>             if successful break out of for loop
>     if we don't have a lock then give up and exit

     for attempt in range(N):
          try:
              lock_file_with_timeout(per_try)  # change to what you mean
          except LockAttemptFailure: # or however the failure is shown
              pass  # here the attempt+1th try failed.
          else:
              break # success -- have the lock
     else:
         raise ImTiredError  # however you handle N attempts w/o success
     <rest_of_code>

Often it is easiest to stick it in a function:

     def retry_lock(tries=3, wait_per_attempt=.5):
         for attempt in range(tries):
             try:
                 # change following to whatever you do to attempt a lock.
                 lock_file_with_timeout(wait_per_attempt)
             except LockAttemptFailure: # or however the failure is shown
                 pass  # here the attempt+1th try failed.
             else:
                 return # success -- have the lock
         raise ImTiredError

--Scott David Daniels
Scott.Daniels at Acm.Org