How to get the return value from a thread in Python?

In Python 3.2+, stdlib concurrent.futures module provides a higher level API to threading, including passing return values or exceptions from a worker thread back to the main thread:

import concurrent.futures

def foo(bar):
    print('hello {}'.format(bar))
    return 'foo'

with concurrent.futures.ThreadPoolExecutor() as executor:
    future = executor.submit(foo, 'world!')
    return_value = future.result()
    print(return_value)

Most answers I've found are long and require being familiar with other modules or advanced python features, and will be rather confusing to someone unless they're already familiar with everything the answer talks about.

Working code for a simplified approach:

import threading

class ThreadWithResult(threading.Thread):
    def __init__(self, group=None, target=None, name=None, args=(), kwargs={}, *, daemon=None):
        def function():
            self.result = target(*args, **kwargs)
        super().__init__(group=group, target=function, name=name, daemon=daemon)

Example code:

import time, random


def function_to_thread(n):
    count = 0
    while count < 3:
            print(f'still running thread {n}')
            count +=1
            time.sleep(3)
    result = random.random()
    print(f'Return value of thread {n} should be: {result}')
    return result


def main():
    thread1 = ThreadWithResult(target=function_to_thread, args=(1,))
    thread2 = ThreadWithResult(target=function_to_thread, args=(2,))
    thread1.start()
    thread2.start()
    thread1.join()
    thread2.join()
    print(thread1.result)
    print(thread2.result)

main()

Explanation: I wanted to simplify things significantly, so I created a ThreadWithResult class and had it inherit from threading.Thread. The nested function function in __init__ calls the threaded function we want to save the value of, and saves the result of that nested function as the instance attribute self.result after the thread finishes executing.

Creating an instance of this is identical to creating an instance of threading.Thread. Pass in the function you want to run on a new thread to the target argument and any arguments that your function might need to the args argument and any keyword arguments to the kwargs argument.

e.g.

my_thread = ThreadWithResult(target=my_function, args=(arg1, arg2, arg3))

I think this is significantly easier to understand than the vast majority of answers, and this approach requires no extra imports! I included the time and random module to simulate the behavior of a thread, but they're not required to achieve the functionality asked in the original question.

I know I'm answering this looong after the question was asked, but I hope this can help more people in the future!

EDIT: I created the save-thread-result PyPI package to allow you to access the same code above and reuse it across projects (GitHub code is here). The PyPI package fully extends the threading.Thread class, so you can set any attributes you would set on threading.thread on the ThreadWithResult class as well!

The original answer above goes over the main idea behind this subclass, but for more information, see the more detailed explanation (from the module docstring) here.

Quick usage example:

pip3 install -U save-thread-result     # MacOS/Linux
pip  install -U save-thread-result     # Windows

python3     # MacOS/Linux
python      # Windows

from save_thread_result import ThreadWithResult

# As of Release 0.0.3, you can also specify values for
#`group`, `name`, and `daemon` if you want to set those
# values manually.
thread = ThreadWithResult(
    target = my_function,
    args   = (my_function_arg1, my_function_arg2, ...)
    kwargs = {my_function_kwarg1: kwarg1_value, my_function_kwarg2: kwarg2_value, ...}
)

thread.start()
thread.join()
if getattr(thread, 'result', None):
    print(thread.result)
else:
    # thread.result attribute not set - something caused
    # the thread to terminate BEFORE the thread finished
    # executing the function passed in through the
    # `target` argument
    print('ERROR! Something went wrong while executing this thread, and the function you passed in did NOT complete!!')

# seeing help about the class and information about the threading.Thread super class methods and attributes available:
help(ThreadWithResult)

Using Queue :

import threading, queue

def calc_square(num, out_queue1):
  l = []
  for x in num:
    l.append(x*x)
  out_queue1.put(l)


arr = [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10]
out_queue1=queue.Queue()
t1=threading.Thread(target=calc_square, args=(arr,out_queue1))
t1.start()
t1.join()
print (out_queue1.get())

Taking into consideration @iman comment on @JakeBiesinger answer I have recomposed it to have various number of threads:

from multiprocessing.pool import ThreadPool

def foo(bar, baz):
    print 'hello {0}'.format(bar)
    return 'foo' + baz

numOfThreads = 3 
results = []

pool = ThreadPool(numOfThreads)

for i in range(0, numOfThreads):
    results.append(pool.apply_async(foo, ('world', 'foo'))) # tuple of args for foo)

# do some other stuff in the main process
# ...
# ...

results = [r.get() for r in results]
print results

pool.close()
pool.join()

Based of what kindall mentioned, here's the more generic solution that works with Python3.

import threading

class ThreadWithReturnValue(threading.Thread):
    def __init__(self, *init_args, **init_kwargs):
        threading.Thread.__init__(self, *init_args, **init_kwargs)
        self._return = None
    def run(self):
        self._return = self._target(*self._args, **self._kwargs)
    def join(self):
        threading.Thread.join(self)
        return self._return

Usage

        th = ThreadWithReturnValue(target=requests.get, args=('http://www.google.com',))
        th.start()
        response = th.join()
        response.status_code  # => 200

As mentioned multiprocessing pool is much slower than basic threading. Using queues as proposeded in some answers here is a very effective alternative. I have use it with dictionaries in order to be able run a lot of small threads and recuperate multiple answers by combining them with dictionaries:

#!/usr/bin/env python3

import threading
# use Queue for python2
import queue
import random

LETTERS = 'abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz'
LETTERS = [ x for x in LETTERS ]

NUMBERS = [0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9]

def randoms(k, q):
    result = dict()
    result['letter'] = random.choice(LETTERS)
    result['number'] = random.choice(NUMBERS)
    q.put({k: result})

threads = list()
q = queue.Queue()
results = dict()

for name in ('alpha', 'oscar', 'yankee',):
    threads.append( threading.Thread(target=randoms, args=(name, q)) )
    threads[-1].start()
_ = [ t.join() for t in threads ]
while not q.empty():
    results.update(q.get())

print(results)

Here is the version that I created of @Kindall's answer.

This version makes it so that all you have to do is input your command with arguments to create the new thread.

This was made with Python 3.8:

from threading import Thread
from typing import Any

def test(plug, plug2, plug3):
    print(f"hello {plug}")
    print(f'I am the second plug : {plug2}')
    print(plug3)
    return 'I am the return Value!'

def test2(msg):
    return f'I am from the second test: {msg}'

def test3():
    print('hello world')

def NewThread(com, Returning: bool, *arguments) -> Any:
    """
    Will create a new thread for a function/command.

    :param com: Command to be Executed
    :param arguments: Arguments to be sent to Command
    :param Returning: True/False Will this command need to return anything
    """
    class NewThreadWorker(Thread):
        def __init__(self, group = None, target = None, name = None, args = (), kwargs = None, *,
                     daemon = None):
            Thread.__init__(self, group, target, name, args, kwargs, daemon = daemon)
            
            self._return = None
        
        def run(self):
            if self._target is not None:
                self._return = self._target(*self._args, **self._kwargs)
        
        def join(self):
            Thread.join(self)
            return self._return
    
    ntw = NewThreadWorker(target = com, args = (*arguments,))
    ntw.start()
    if Returning:
        return ntw.join()

if __name__ == "__main__":
    print(NewThread(test, True, 'hi', 'test', test2('hi')))
    NewThread(test3, True)

This is a pretty old question, but I wanted to share a simple solution that has worked for me and helped my dev process.

The methodology behind this answer is the fact that the "new" target function, inner is assigning the result of the original function (passed through the __init__ function) to the result instance attribute of the wrapper through something called closure.

This allows the wrapper class to hold onto the return value for callers to access at anytime.

NOTE: This method doesn't need to use any mangled methods or private methods of the threading.Thread class, although yield functions have not been considered (OP did not mention yield functions).

Enjoy!

from threading import Thread as _Thread


class ThreadWrapper:
    def __init__(self, target, *args, **kwargs):
        self.result = None
        self._target = self._build_threaded_fn(target)
        self.thread = _Thread(
            target=self._target,
            *args,
            **kwargs
        )

    def _build_threaded_fn(self, func):
        def inner(*args, **kwargs):
            self.result = func(*args, **kwargs)
        return inner

Additionally, you can run pytest (assuming you have it installed) with the following code to demonstrate the results:

import time
from commons import ThreadWrapper


def test():

    def target():
        time.sleep(1)
        return 'Hello'

    wrapper = ThreadWrapper(target=target)
    wrapper.thread.start()

    r = wrapper.result
    assert r is None

    time.sleep(2)

    r = wrapper.result
    assert r == 'Hello'

Kindall's answer in Python3

class ThreadWithReturnValue(Thread):
    def __init__(self, group=None, target=None, name=None,
                 args=(), kwargs={}, *, daemon=None):
        Thread.__init__(self, group, target, name, args, kwargs, daemon)
        self._return = None 

    def run(self):
        try:
            if self._target:
                self._return = self._target(*self._args, **self._kwargs)
        finally:
            del self._target, self._args, self._kwargs 

    def join(self,timeout=None):
        Thread.join(self,timeout)
        return self._return

Best way... Define a global variable, then change the variable in the threaded function. Nothing to pass in or retrieve back

from threading import Thread

# global var
radom_global_var = 5

def function():
    global random_global_var
    random_global_var += 1

domath = Thread(target=function)
domath.start()
domath.join()
print(random_global_var)

# result: 6

I know this thread is old.... but I faced the same problem... If you are willing to use thread.join()

import threading

class test:

    def __init__(self):
        self.msg=""

    def hello(self,bar):
        print('hello {}'.format(bar))
        self.msg="foo"


    def main(self):
        thread = threading.Thread(target=self.hello, args=('world!',))
        thread.start()
        thread.join()
        print(self.msg)

g=test()
g.main()