How to create a new thread in Python
Threads in python are an entity within a process that can be scheduled for execution. In simpler words, a thread is a computation process that is to be performed by a computer. It is a sequence of such instructions within a program that can be executed independently of other codes.
In Python, there are two ways to create a new Thread. In this article, we will also be making use of the threading module in Python. Below is a detailed list of those processes:
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1. Creating python threads using class
Below has a coding example followed by the code explanation for creating new threads using class in python.
Python3
# import the threading moduleimport threadingclass thread(threading.Thread): def __init__(self, thread_name, thread_ID): threading.Thread.__init__(self) self.thread_name = thread_name self.thread_ID = thread_ID # helper function to execute the threads def run(self): print(str(self.thread_name) +" "+ str(self.thread_ID));thread1 = thread("GFG", 1000)thread2 = thread("GeeksforGeeks", 2000);thread1.start()thread2.start()print("Exit") |
Output:
GFG 1000 GeeksforGeeks 2000 Exit
Now let’s look into what we did up there in the code.
- We created a sub-class of the thread class.
- Then we override the __init__ function of the thread class.
- Then we override the run method to define the behavior of the thread.
- The start() method starts a Python thread.
2. Creating python threads using function
The below code shows the creation of new thread using a function:
Python3
from threading import Threadfrom time import sleep# function to create threadsdef threaded_function(arg): for i in range(arg): print("running") # wait 1 sec in between each thread sleep(1)if __name__ == "__main__": thread = Thread(target = threaded_function, args = (10, )) thread.start() thread.join() print("thread finished...exiting") |
Output:
running running running running running running running running running running thread finished...exiting
So what we did in the above code,
- We defined a function to create a thread.
- Then we used the threading module to create a thread that invoked the function as its target.
- Then we used start() method to start the Python thread.
