Stoppable worker thread

worker.py

# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-
import threading
import time


class Worker(object):
    def __init__(self):
        self._stop_event = threading.Event()
        self._thread = threading.Thread(target=self.run, args=())
        # important otherwise never stops when run() gets stuck!!
        self._thread.daemon = True
        self._thread.start()

    def run(self):
        while not self._stop_event.is_set():
            print("I'm running..")
            self._stop_event.wait(1)
        time.sleep(5)
        print("Exiting!")

    def stop(self):
        print("Stopping...")
        self._stop_event.set()
        self._thread.join(3)  # sec
        if self._thread.is_alive():
            print("ERROR Stopping thread, it is alive!!")
        else:
            print("Stopped")
        self._thread = None
        print("Killed")


worker = Worker()
time.sleep(5)
worker.stop()
print("bye!")