How can I run my python script while a Tkinter GUI is active?

Question

I am trying to create a GUI. I need to execute another python script while the GUI is active. (The GUI is supposed to process the data from this execution) Because I created the GUI using Tkinter, I am unable to execute another file in the python terminal.

How can I solve this problem?

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/15057789/multiprocessing-in-python-tkinter — stark, Mar 09 '13 at 19:01
@stark Can u explain a little more about it or can u give an example. Answers given to the above question is confusing me... — Jerin, Mar 09 '13 at 19:16

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Mar 09 '13 at 19:55

You don't need to launch another interpreter.

You can simply execute the code from the other script in a separte thread or process.

Refactor your "other" script

You want your "other" script to be callable from another script. To do so, you'll just need a function that does what your script used to do.

#other.py

def main(arg1, arg2, arg3):
    do_stuff(arg1, arg2)
    more_stuff(arg2, arg3)
    other_stuff(arg1, arg3) 
    finish_stuff(arg1, arg2, arg3)

Execute the code in another thread

In your main script, when you want to execute the code from other.py, start a new thread:

 #script.py

 from threading import Thread

 from other import main

 thread = Thread(target = main)
 thread.start() # This code will execute in parallel to the current code

To check that whether your work is done, use thread.is_alive(). To block until it finishes, use thread.join()

Thanks Thomas. I got an answer similar to this from the following link, this is what i was looking for.. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TE7ysx3a7zU — Jerin, Mar 13 '13 at 14:41

How can I run my python script while a Tkinter GUI is active?

1 Answers1

Refactor your "other" script

Execute the code in another thread