Threads in PyGTK: keep typing while ping-ing

[Mamahita Sela]

Dear All,

I have read several howtos for threading in PyGTK. I have tried some but with no luck.

What i want is: i can keep typing in gtk.TextView while periodically doing ping some hosts.

I think, the thread part is working since i can ping so fast (even for not reply host, around 3 s for 27 no-reply-host). But, when the ping action is running, i can not typing in textview. What i type while pinging will show up after ping action is done.

(I am using 2.5.1, pygtk 2.10.6 on Linux x86)

This is my code:
import threading
import commands
import gtk
import gobject

gtk.gdk.threads_init()


class PingHost(threading.Thread):
def __init__(self, host):
threading.Thread.__init__(self)
self.host = host
self.result = ()
def run(self):
self.result = self.host, commands.getstatusoutput('ping %s -c1' %(self.host))[0]

class Main:
def __init__(self):
self.win = gtk.Window()
self.win.connect('destroy', gtk.main_quit)
#
self.textb = gtk.TextBuffer()
self.textv = gtk.TextView(self.textb)
self.textv.set_size_request(500, 500)
#
self.win.add(self.textv)
self.win.show_all()
#
gobject.timeout_add(5000, self.do_ping)

def do_ping(self):
all_threads = []
#
for h in range(100, 105):
host = '192.168.0.%d' %(h)
#
worker = PingHost(host)
worker.start()
all_threads.append(worker)
#
for t in all_threads:
t.join()
print t.result
#
return True


if __name__ == '__main__':
app = Main()
gtk.main()


Any help would be appreciated
Best regards,
M

 

[bieffe62]

Dear All,

I have read several howtos for threading in PyGTK. I have tried some but with no luck.

What i want is: i can keep typing in gtk.TextView while periodically doing ping some hosts.

I think, the thread part is working since i can ping so fast (even for not reply host, around 3 s for 27 no-reply-host). But, when the ping action is running, i can not typing in textview. What i type while pinging will show up after ping action is done.

(I am using 2.5.1, pygtk 2.10.6 on Linux x86)

This is my code:
import threading
import commands
import gtk
import gobject

gtk.gdk.threads_init()

class PingHost(threading.Thread):
    def __init__(self, host):
        threading.Thread.__init__(self)
        self.host = host
        self.result = ()
    def run(self):
        self.result = self.host, commands.getstatusoutput('ping %s -c1' %(self.host))[0]

class Main:
    def __init__(self):
        self.win = gtk.Window()
        self.win.connect('destroy', gtk.main_quit)
        #
        self.textb = gtk.TextBuffer()
        self.textv = gtk.TextView(self.textb)
        self.textv.set_size_request(500, 500)
        #
        self.win.add(self.textv)
        self.win.show_all()
        #
        gobject.timeout_add(5000, self.do_ping)

        def do_ping(self):
        all_threads = []
        #
        for h in range(100, 105):
            host = '192.168.0.%d' %(h)
            #
            worker = PingHost(host)
            worker.start()
            all_threads.append(worker)
        #
        for t in all_threads:
            t.join()
            print t.result
        #
        return True

if __name__ == '__main__':
    app = Main()
    gtk.main()

Any help would be appreciated
Best regards,
M

As you have been already told, join() blocks until the thread is
terminated. and you should avoid that.
A simple fix could by add a timeout to t.join, doing something like :
t.join(JOIN_TIMEOUT);
if not t.isAlive():
print t.result

Anywway, starting a thread for each ping is not very efficient, so you
could do better by having a 'ping server thread'
that repeatedly performs the following steps:
- accepts ping command on a queue.Queue
- ping the target and waits for the result
- publish the result on another queue.Queue

At this point, the do_ping action should:
- send a ping command to the oping server
- check (in non blocking mode) if there is any result on the ping
results queue
- display the result, if any

Another big speedup would be to avoid spawning a subprocess fro each
ping and instead
using directly sockets to send ICMP packets, using recipes like this :

http://code.activestate.com/recipes/409689/

Ciao