Python timer when web page hangs?

[tc101]

How do I use a timer in python so that when I am trying to open a web page and it just hangs I can go on in the process after a few seconds?

My code hangs here:

req = urllib2.Request(url)
handle = urllib2.urlopen(req)

with certain urls which also hang in a browser

[bbzbryce]

How do I use a timer in python so that when I am trying to open a web page and it just hangs I can go on in the process after a few seconds?

My code hangs here:

req = urllib2.Request(url)
handle = urllib2.urlopen(req)

with certain urls which also hang in a browser

Do something like this:

socket.setdefaulttimeout(5)
try:
req = urllib2.Request(url)
handle = urllib2.urlopen(req)
except socket.timeout:
print 'timed out'

This will timeout after 5 seconds.

[bbzbryce]

Sorry it should be urllib2.URLError instead of socket.timeout.


import urllib2
import socket

socket.setdefaulttimeout(1)

for i in xrange(100):
try:
req = urllib2.Request('http://digg.com')
handle = urllib2.urlopen(req)
except urllib2.URLError:
print 'timed out'
else:
print i,'sucess'

[tc101]

Thanks for you help bbzbryce. I was just about to post another question but your second post solved my problem.

Actually except socket.timeout: got me out of the hang state and continued with the program, but it did not print the message. I had not established if it exited the whole function or what


try:
req = urllib2.Request(url)
handle = urllib2.urlopen(req)
except socket.timeout:
print 'timed out' #message does not print


try:
req = urllib2.Request('http://digg.com')
handle = urllib2.urlopen(req)
except urllib2.URLError:
print 'timed out' #message prints fine

[bbzbryce]

Thanks for you help bbzbryce. I was just about to post another question but your second post solved my problem.

The first message doesn't print because it's not the proper exception; hence my updated post. If you don't care to handle the exception then just do:


try:
# do something
except:
pass

[tc101]

OK, now I understand. It would time out no matter what because of

socket.setdefaulttimeout(1)

We were just dealing with getting the message to print. Thanks for your help.

[bbzbryce]

OK, now I understand. It would time out no matter what because of

socket.setdefaulttimeout(1)

We were just dealing with getting the message to print. Thanks for your help.

Correct setting the default timeout will throw the urllib2.URLError error. So if you don't have the urlrequest in a try block then your python script will exit and print a stack trace.