Python: Catch Ctrl-C command. Prompt “really want

Question

I have a program that may have a lengthy execution. In the main module I have the following:

import signal
def run_program()
   ...time consuming execution...

def Exit_gracefully(signal, frame):
    ... log exiting information ...
    ... close any open files ...
    sys.exit(0)

if __name__ == '__main__':
    signal.signal(signal.SIGINT, Exit_gracefully)
    run_program()

This works fine, but I'd like the possibility to pause execution upon catching SIGINT, prompting the user if they would really like to quit, and resuming where I left off in run_program() if they decide they don't want to quit.

The only way I can think of doing this is running the program in a separate thread, keeping the main thread waiting on it and ready to catch SIGINT. If the user wants to quit the main thread can do cleanup and kill the child thread.

Is there a simpler way?

Answer 1

The python signal handlers do not seem to be real signal handlers; that is they happen after the fact, in the normal flow and after the C handler has already returned. Thus you'd try to put your quit logic within the signal handler. As the signal handler runs in the main thread, it will block execution there too.

Something like this seems to work nicely.

import signal
import time
import sys

def run_program():
    while True:
        time.sleep(1)
        print("a")

def exit_gracefully(signum, frame):
    # restore the original signal handler as otherwise evil things will happen
    # in raw_input when CTRL+C is pressed, and our signal handler is not re-entrant
    signal.signal(signal.SIGINT, original_sigint)

    try:
        if raw_input("\nReally quit? (y/n)> ").lower().startswith('y'):
            sys.exit(1)

    except KeyboardInterrupt:
        print("Ok ok, quitting")
        sys.exit(1)

    # restore the exit gracefully handler here    
    signal.signal(signal.SIGINT, exit_gracefully)

if __name__ == '__main__':
    # store the original SIGINT handler
    original_sigint = signal.getsignal(signal.SIGINT)
    signal.signal(signal.SIGINT, exit_gracefully)
    run_program()

The code restores the original signal handler for the duration of raw_input; raw_input itself is not re-entrable, and re-entering it will lead to RuntimeError: can't re-enter readline being raised from time.sleep which is something we don't want as it is harder to catch than KeyboardInterrupt. Rather, we let 2 consecutive Ctrl-C's to raise KeyboardInterrupt.