Python : Basic countdown timer & function() > int(

Question

I'm trying to ucreate a timer function that runs in the background of my code and make it so I can use/check the time. What I mean by use/check, I'm trying to make it so I can call upon that timer function and use it as integer.

This is the code I currently have:

def timer():
    for endtime in range(0, 15):
        print(15 - endtime)
        time.sleep(1)

def hall():
    timer()
    while (timer > 0):
       do something

Currently only using print(15 - endtime) for confirmation it is counting down.

But what the code does now is execute the countdown and that's it, it never touches the while loop. And of course the last issue is I can't set a function to an int. So I'm looking for some way where I can check where the timer is at and use it in that while loop.

Answer 1

The way you do it, you'll going to have to use multithread.

Here is another, simpler approach : On your script beginning, set a time_start variable with the number of seconds since the epoch using time.time() Then when you need the number of elapsed seconds, use time.time() - time_start :

t_start = time.time()
# do whatever you'd like
t_current = int(time.time()-t_start) # this way you get the number of seconds elapsed since start.

You can put that in a function as well, defining t_start as a global variable.

import time
t_start = time.time()

def timer():
    global t_start
    print(str(int(time.time()-t_start)))


print('start')
time.sleep(2)
timer()
time.sleep(3)
timer()

Answer 2

The problem with your code is that when you run hall(), Python first executes the whole of timer() (i.e. the whole for loop), and then moves on with the rest of the code (it can only do one thing at a time). Thus, by the time it reaches the while loop in hall(), timer is already 0.

So, you're going to have to do something about that timer so that it counts down once, and then it moves on to the do something part.

Something that you can do is this:

def hall():
    for a in range(0, 15):
        print(15 - a)
        # do something
        time.sleep(1)

This should work just fine (if you're only executing hall 15 times), and condenses your code to just one function.

Answer 3

import time

def timer(tim):
    time.sleep(1)
    print tim

def hall():
    tim = 15
    while (tim > 0):
        print 'do something'
        timer(tim)
        tim-=1

Not the cleanest solution, but it will do what you need.