Is it possible to terminate a running thread without setting/checking any flags/semaphores/etc.?
32 Answers
It is generally a bad pattern to kill a thread abruptly, in Python, and in any language. Think of the following cases:
- the thread is holding a critical resource that must be closed properly
- the thread has created several other threads that must be killed as well.
The nice way of handling this, if you can afford it (if you are managing your own threads), is to have an exit_request flag that each thread checks on a regular interval to see if it is time for it to exit.
For example:
import threading
class StoppableThread(threading.Thread):
"""Thread class with a stop() method. The thread itself has to check
regularly for the stopped() condition."""
def __init__(self, *args, **kwargs):
super(StoppableThread, self).__init__(*args, **kwargs)
self._stop_event = threading.Event()
def stop(self):
self._stop_event.set()
def stopped(self):
return self._stop_event.is_set()
In this code, you should call stop() on the thread when you want it to exit, and wait for the thread to exit properly using join(). The thread should check the stop flag at regular intervals.
There are cases, however, when you really need to kill a thread. An example is when you are wrapping an external library that is busy for long calls, and you want to interrupt it.
The following code allows (with some restrictions) to raise an Exception in a Python thread:
def _async_raise(tid, exctype):
'''Raises an exception in the threads with id tid'''
if not inspect.isclass(exctype):
raise TypeError("Only types can be raised (not instances)")
res = ctypes.pythonapi.PyThreadState_SetAsyncExc(ctypes.c_long(tid),
ctypes.py_object(exctype))
if res == 0:
raise ValueError("invalid thread id")
elif res != 1:
# "if it returns a number greater than one, you're in trouble,
# and you should call it again with exc=NULL to revert the effect"
ctypes.pythonapi.PyThreadState_SetAsyncExc(ctypes.c_long(tid), None)
raise SystemError("PyThreadState_SetAsyncExc failed")
class ThreadWithExc(threading.Thread):
'''A thread class that supports raising an exception in the thread from
another thread.
'''
def _get_my_tid(self):
"""determines this (self's) thread id
CAREFUL: this function is executed in the context of the caller
thread, to get the identity of the thread represented by this
instance.
"""
if not self.isAlive():
raise threading.ThreadError("the thread is not active")
# do we have it cached?
if hasattr(self, "_thread_id"):
return self._thread_id
# no, look for it in the _active dict
for tid, tobj in threading._active.items():
if tobj is self:
self._thread_id = tid
return tid
# TODO: in python 2.6, there's a simpler way to do: self.ident
raise AssertionError("could not determine the thread's id")
def raiseExc(self, exctype):
"""Raises the given exception type in the context of this thread.
If the thread is busy in a system call (time.sleep(),
socket.accept(), ...), the exception is simply ignored.
If you are sure that your exception should terminate the thread,
one way to ensure that it works is:
t = ThreadWithExc( ... )
...
t.raiseExc( SomeException )
while t.isAlive():
time.sleep( 0.1 )
t.raiseExc( SomeException )
If the exception is to be caught by the thread, you need a way to
check that your thread has caught it.
CAREFUL: this function is executed in the context of the
caller thread, to raise an exception in the context of the
thread represented by this instance.
"""
_async_raise( self._get_my_tid(), exctype )
(Based on Killable Threads by Tomer Filiba. The quote about the return value of PyThreadState_SetAsyncExc appears to be from an old version of Python.)
As noted in the documentation, this is not a magic bullet because if the thread is busy outside the Python interpreter, it will not catch the interruption.
A good usage pattern of this code is to have the thread catch a specific exception and perform the cleanup. That way, you can interrupt a task and still have proper cleanup.
There is no official API to do that, no.
You need to use platform API to kill the thread, e.g. pthread_kill, or TerminateThread. You can access such API e.g. through pythonwin, or through ctypes.
Notice that this is inherently unsafe. It will likely lead to uncollectable garbage (from local variables of the stack frames that become garbage), and may lead to deadlocks, if the thread being killed has the GIL at the point when it is killed.
You should never forcibly kill a thread without cooperating with it.
Killing a thread removes any guarantees that try/finally blocks set up so you might leave locks locked, files open, etc.
The only time you can argue that forcibly killing threads is a good idea is to kill a program fast, but never single threads.
You can kill a thread by installing trace into the thread that will exit the thread. See attached link for one possible implementation.
It is better if you don't kill a thread. A way could be to introduce a "try" block into the thread's cycle and to throw an exception when you want to stop the thread (for example a break/return/... that stops your for/while/...). I've used this on my app and it works...
I'm way late to this game, but I've been wrestling with a similar question and the following appears to both resolve the issue perfectly for me AND lets me do some basic thread state checking and cleanup when the daemonized sub-thread exits:
import threading
import time
import atexit
def do_work():
i = 0
@atexit.register
def goodbye():
print ("'CLEANLY' kill sub-thread with value: %s [THREAD: %s]" %
(i, threading.currentThread().ident))
while True:
print i
i += 1
time.sleep(1)
t = threading.Thread(target=do_work)
t.daemon = True
t.start()
def after_timeout():
print "KILL MAIN THREAD: %s" % threading.currentThread().ident
raise SystemExit
threading.Timer(2, after_timeout).start()
Yields:
0
1
KILL MAIN THREAD: 140013208254208
'CLEANLY' kill sub-thread with value: 2 [THREAD: 140013674317568]
Here's yet another way to do it, but with extremely clean and simple code, that works in Python 3.7 in 2021:
import ctypes
def kill_thread(thread):
"""
thread: a threading.Thread object
"""
thread_id = thread.ident
res = ctypes.pythonapi.PyThreadState_SetAsyncExc(thread_id, ctypes.py_object(SystemExit))
if res > 1:
ctypes.pythonapi.PyThreadState_SetAsyncExc(thread_id, 0)
print('Exception raise failure')
Adapted from here: https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/python-different-ways-to-kill-a-thread/
There is a library built for this purpose, stopit. Although some of the same cautions listed herein still apply, at least this library presents a regular, repeatable technique for achieving the stated goal.
Asuming, that you want to have multiple threads of the same function, this is IMHO the easiest implementation to stop one by id:
import time
from threading import Thread
def doit(id=0):
doit.stop=0
print("start id:%d"%id)
while 1:
time.sleep(1)
print(".")
if doit.stop==id:
doit.stop=0
break
print("end thread %d"%id)
t5=Thread(target=doit, args=(5,))
t6=Thread(target=doit, args=(6,))
t5.start() ; t6.start()
time.sleep(2)
doit.stop =5 #kill t5
time.sleep(2)
doit.stop =6 #kill t6
The nice thing is here, you can have multiple of same and different functions, and stop them all by functionname.stop
If you want to have only one thread of the function then you don't need to remember the id. Just stop, if doit.stop > 0.
Just to build up on @SCB's idea (which was exactly what I needed) to create a KillableThread subclass with a customized function:
from threading import Thread, Event
class KillableThread(Thread):
def __init__(self, sleep_interval=1, target=None, name=None, args=(), kwargs={}):
super().__init__(None, target, name, args, kwargs)
self._kill = Event()
self._interval = sleep_interval
print(self._target)
def run(self):
while True:
# Call custom function with arguments
self._target(*self._args)
# If no kill signal is set, sleep for the interval,
# If kill signal comes in while sleeping, immediately
# wake up and handle
is_killed = self._kill.wait(self._interval)
if is_killed:
break
print("Killing Thread")
def kill(self):
self._kill.set()
if __name__ == '__main__':
def print_msg(msg):
print(msg)
t = KillableThread(10, print_msg, args=("hello world"))
t.start()
time.sleep(6)
print("About to kill thread")
t.kill()
Naturally, like with @SBC, the thread doesn't wait to run a new loop to stop. In this example, you would see the "Killing Thread" message printed right after the "About to kill thread" instead of waiting for 4 more seconds for the thread to complete (since we have slept for 6 seconds already).
Second argument in KillableThread constructor is your custom function (print_msg here). Args argument are the arguments that will be used when calling the function (("hello world")) here.
While it's rather old, this might be a handy solution for some:
A little module that extends the threading's module functionality -- allows one thread to raise exceptions in the context of another thread. By raising
SystemExit, you can finally kill python threads.
import threading
import ctypes
def _async_raise(tid, excobj):
res = ctypes.pythonapi.PyThreadState_SetAsyncExc(tid, ctypes.py_object(excobj))
if res == 0:
raise ValueError("nonexistent thread id")
elif res > 1:
# """if it returns a number greater than one, you're in trouble,
# and you should call it again with exc=NULL to revert the effect"""
ctypes.pythonapi.PyThreadState_SetAsyncExc(tid, 0)
raise SystemError("PyThreadState_SetAsyncExc failed")
class Thread(threading.Thread):
def raise_exc(self, excobj):
assert self.isAlive(), "thread must be started"
for tid, tobj in threading._active.items():
if tobj is self:
_async_raise(tid, excobj)
return
# the thread was alive when we entered the loop, but was not found
# in the dict, hence it must have been already terminated. should we raise
# an exception here? silently ignore?
def terminate(self):
# must raise the SystemExit type, instead of a SystemExit() instance
# due to a bug in PyThreadState_SetAsyncExc
self.raise_exc(SystemExit)
So, it allows a "thread to raise exceptions in the context of another thread" and in this way, the terminated thread can handle the termination without regularly checking an abort flag.
However, according to its original source, there are some issues with this code.
- The exception will be raised only when executing python bytecode. If your thread calls a native/built-in blocking function, the exception will be raised only when execution returns to the python code.
- There is also an issue if the built-in function internally calls PyErr_Clear(), which would effectively cancel your pending exception. You can try to raise it again.
- Only exception types can be raised safely. Exception instances are likely to cause unexpected behavior, and are thus restricted.
- For example: t1.raise_exc(TypeError) and not t1.raise_exc(TypeError("blah")).
- IMHO it's a bug, and I reported it as one. For more info, http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2006-August/068158.html
- I asked to expose this function in the built-in thread module, but since ctypes has become a standard library (as of 2.5), and this
feature is not likely to be implementation-agnostic, it may be kept
unexposed.
As mentioned in @Kozyarchuk's answer, installing trace works. Since this answer contained no code, here is a working ready-to-use example:
import sys, threading, time
class TraceThread(threading.Thread):
def __init__(self, *args, **keywords):
threading.Thread.__init__(self, *args, **keywords)
self.killed = False
def start(self):
self._run = self.run
self.run = self.settrace_and_run
threading.Thread.start(self)
def settrace_and_run(self):
sys.settrace(self.globaltrace)
self._run()
def globaltrace(self, frame, event, arg):
return self.localtrace if event == 'call' else None
def localtrace(self, frame, event, arg):
if self.killed and event == 'line':
raise SystemExit()
return self.localtrace
def f():
while True:
print('1')
time.sleep(2)
print('2')
time.sleep(2)
print('3')
time.sleep(2)
t = TraceThread(target=f)
t.start()
time.sleep(2.5)
t.killed = True
It stops after having printed 1 and 2. 3 is not printed.
Python version: 3.8
Using daemon thread to execute what we wanted, if we want to daemon thread be terminated, all we need is making parent thread exit, then system will terminate daemon thread which parent thread created.
Also support coroutine and coroutine function.
def main():
start_time = time.perf_counter()
t1 = ExitThread(time.sleep, (10,), debug=False)
t1.start()
time.sleep(0.5)
t1.exit()
try:
print(t1.result_future.result())
except concurrent.futures.CancelledError:
pass
end_time = time.perf_counter()
print(f"time cost {end_time - start_time:0.2f}")
below is ExitThread source code
import concurrent.futures
import threading
import typing
import asyncio
class _WorkItem(object):
""" concurrent\futures\thread.py
"""
def __init__(self, future, fn, args, kwargs, *, debug=None):
self._debug = debug
self.future = future
self.fn = fn
self.args = args
self.kwargs = kwargs
def run(self):
if self._debug:
print("ExitThread._WorkItem run")
if not self.future.set_running_or_notify_cancel():
return
try:
coroutine = None
if asyncio.iscoroutinefunction(self.fn):
coroutine = self.fn(*self.args, **self.kwargs)
elif asyncio.iscoroutine(self.fn):
coroutine = self.fn
if coroutine is None:
result = self.fn(*self.args, **self.kwargs)
else:
result = asyncio.run(coroutine)
if self._debug:
print("_WorkItem done")
except BaseException as exc:
self.future.set_exception(exc)
# Break a reference cycle with the exception 'exc'
self = None
else:
self.future.set_result(result)
class ExitThread:
""" Like a stoppable thread
Using coroutine for target then exit before running may cause RuntimeWarning.
"""
def __init__(self, target: typing.Union[typing.Coroutine, typing.Callable] = None
, args=(), kwargs={}, *, daemon=None, debug=None):
#
self._debug = debug
self._parent_thread = threading.Thread(target=self._parent_thread_run, name="ExitThread_parent_thread"
, daemon=daemon)
self._child_daemon_thread = None
self.result_future = concurrent.futures.Future()
self._workItem = _WorkItem(self.result_future, target, args, kwargs, debug=debug)
self._parent_thread_exit_lock = threading.Lock()
self._parent_thread_exit_lock.acquire()
self._parent_thread_exit_lock_released = False # When done it will be True
self._started = False
self._exited = False
self.result_future.add_done_callback(self._release_parent_thread_exit_lock)
def _parent_thread_run(self):
self._child_daemon_thread = threading.Thread(target=self._child_daemon_thread_run
, name="ExitThread_child_daemon_thread"
, daemon=True)
self._child_daemon_thread.start()
# Block manager thread
self._parent_thread_exit_lock.acquire()
self._parent_thread_exit_lock.release()
if self._debug:
print("ExitThread._parent_thread_run exit")
def _release_parent_thread_exit_lock(self, _future):
if self._debug:
print(f"ExitThread._release_parent_thread_exit_lock {self._parent_thread_exit_lock_released} {_future}")
if not self._parent_thread_exit_lock_released:
self._parent_thread_exit_lock_released = True
self._parent_thread_exit_lock.release()
def _child_daemon_thread_run(self):
self._workItem.run()
def start(self):
if self._debug:
print(f"ExitThread.start {self._started}")
if not self._started:
self._started = True
self._parent_thread.start()
def exit(self):
if self._debug:
print(f"ExitThread.exit exited: {self._exited} lock_released: {self._parent_thread_exit_lock_released}")
if self._parent_thread_exit_lock_released:
return
if not self._exited:
self._exited = True
if not self.result_future.cancel():
if self.result_future.running():
self.result_future.set_exception(concurrent.futures.CancelledError())
Pieter Hintjens -- one of the founders of the ØMQ-project -- says, using ØMQ and avoiding synchronization primitives like locks, mutexes, events etc., is the sanest and securest way to write multi-threaded programs:
http://zguide.zeromq.org/py:all#Multithreading-with-ZeroMQ
This includes telling a child thread, that it should cancel its work. This would be done by equipping the thread with a ØMQ-socket and polling on that socket for a message saying that it should cancel.
The link also provides an example on multi-threaded python code with ØMQ.
An alternative is to use signal.pthread_kill to send a stop signal.
from signal import pthread_kill, SIGTSTP
from threading import Thread
from itertools import count
from time import sleep
def target():
for num in count():
print(num)
sleep(1)
thread = Thread(target=target)
thread.start()
sleep(5)
pthread_kill(thread.ident, SIGTSTP)
result
0
1
2
3
4
[14]+ Stopped
just use
if thread.is_alive():
print("thread alive")
else:
print("thread is killed")
it'll automatically kills the thread
The most simple way is this:
from threading import Thread
from time import sleep
def do_something():
global thread_work
while thread_work:
print('doing something')
sleep(5)
print('Thread stopped')
thread_work = True
Thread(target=do_something).start()
sleep(5)
thread_work = False
Related