Calculate the time a line of code has been running and terminate it if exceeds a time limit

Question

Is there a way in python to check for how long a line of code has been running? Also, if it exceeds a time limit, terminate it.

Problem

It is difficult to explain the entire use case. I have a library which classifies an image in dog and cat for example. I can't modify the original library as it generates so many different errors. So what I'm using is a single function call from that library.

Now, let's say the function call takes variable time to spit out the result for different images. I want to limit the time to 15 seconds, i.e., if any call takes 15 seconds or less then it should run normally, but if it exceeds 15 seconds, then terminate the line and exit.

Example

time.sleep() can be used as an example to mimic the use case. The equivalent for my problem would be, I want time.sleep(14) to run successfully, but time.sleep(16) should terminate after 15 seconds and not finish.

What I've tried

I've tried using Process from multiprocessing but I could only return if the line takes enough time or exceeds the limit, I couldn't run the function explicitly. I have the following code to check if it runs in time or not:

def run_with_limited_time(func, args, time):
  p = Process(target=func, args=args)
  p.start()
  p.join(time)

  if p.is_alive():
    p.terminate()
    return False

  return True

But don't know how to get the output of actual function call.

Does this answer your question? [Timeout on a function call](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/492519/timeout-on-a-function-call) — Standard_101, Oct 06 '21 at 11:34
Using `Process` to function timeout is a good method, and to retrieve the output from the function: https://stackoverflow.com/a/10415215/1581658 — SamBob, Oct 06 '21 at 11:35
But I can't say, if that question completely solved my problem as it doesn't care about terminating the process if overtime. — theProcrastinator, Oct 06 '21 at 12:56

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Oct 06 '21 at 11:42

A safe (though slightly less performant) way is to wrap up your library as a callable program and then use the subprocess module to call it (perhaps using timeout(1) to ensure that it terminates).

You could put as much of this into your current program as you want using multiprocessing.

Calculate the time a line of code has been running and terminate it if exceeds a time limit

Problem

Example

What I've tried

1 Answers1