How to Run a Python Script in Regular Interval

The aim of this page📝 is to share an extremely simple way to run a script repeatedly in regular interval (e.g. 3 seconds) in python. What is needed is just a built-in time module with its sleep method which

Suspend execution of the calling thread for the given number of seconds. The argument may be a floating point number to indicate a more precise sleep time.

Note that it is a best practice to share the unit of the interval in an extra variable. I am also capitalizing the binding defining the interval as per pep-8’s practice of writing constants in upper case.

CODE

>>> import time
>>> SLEEP_SECONDS = 3
>>> while True:
...     print("hello world")
...     time.sleep(SLEEP_SECONDS)
hello world
hello world
hello world
hello world
hello world
hello world

LINKS

• Please put units in names
• https://docs.python.org/3/library/time.html?highlight=time%20module#time.sleep