Python 3, threading and references

Creating a thread

I used threading to enable real-time graphing of data from sensors. One thread collected data from the sensors. The main thread ran the real time graph. I had a few problems getting started. It came down to my incorrect use of brackets when creating the thread.

When we create a thread using the threading library, we need to pass the target to the thread without using brackets. e.g.

thread = threading.Thread(target=ThreadTest)

not

thread = threading.Thread(target=ThreadTest())

Otherwise the target is created in the main thread, which is what we are trying to avoid. Without the brackets, we pass a reference to the target. With the brackets, we have already created the object. I think that this is analogous to passing a pointer in C, but stand to be corrected.

Example

In test1.py I call ThreadTest without using brackets. test_thread starts in the thread and allows test1.py to continue running.

In test2.py, I pass ThreadTest() as the target. In this case the thread does not allow test2.py to continue running.

test1.py

import threading from thread_test import ThreadTest

thread = threading.Thread(target=ThreadTest)
thread.start()
print('not blocked')

test2.py

import threading from thread_test import ThreadTest

thread = threading.Thread(target=ThreadTest())
thread.start()
print('not blocked')

test_thread.py

from time import sleep

class ThreadTest():
    def __init__(self):
        print('thread_test started')
        while True:
            sleep(1)
            print('test_thread')

output from test1.py:

thread_test started
not blocked
test_thread
test_thread
test_thread

output from test2.py:

thread_test started
test_thread
test_thread
test_thread