Stopping a thread once condition matches

Question

I want to trigger upfunction and stop when it writes 3 in the filename. Basically I want to stop a thread once the condition is met as shown below.

def getstatus():
    fh = open(filename,'r')
    return fh.read()

def  upfunction(arg):

    for i in range(arg):
        print ("backup running")
        print(getstatus())
        target = open(filename, 'w')
        target.write(str(i))
        sleep(1)



if __name__ == "__main__":
    thread = Thread(target = upfunction, args = (10, ))
    thread.start()
    print(getstatus())
    while getstatus() != "3":
        print("NOT 3 ")
        sleep(0.5)
        continue


    thread.stop()
    print("thread finished...exiting")

It shows

AttributeError: 'Thread' object has no attribute 'stop'

Please see me as newbie to python. Any help will be highly appreciated

Answer 1

'Thread' object has no attribute 'stop' is helpful answer from python interpretator to you

You should place thread termination condition to upfunction.

    def  upfunction(arg):
        i = 0
        while getstatus() != "3":
            print ("backup running")
            print(getstatus())
            target = open(filename, 'w')
            target.write(str(i))
            i += 1
            sleep(1)

if __name__ == "__main__":
    thread = Thread(target = upfunction, args = (10, ))
    thread.start()
    print(getstatus())
    print("thread finished...exiting")

Answer 2

you can just use threading deamon method to kill this new thread.

thread.start()
thread.deamon()

when the main threads ends this custom threads also dies .so there is no need of that.

Answer 3

Here are some explanation about the right way to do that: Is there any way to kill a Thread in Python?.

And as Lex said [0], you can add a condition (in upfunction arguments) to stop your target function.