Equivalent of alarm(3600) in Python

Question

Starting a Perl script with alarm(3600) will make the script abort if it is still running after one hour (3600 seconds).

Assume I want to set an upper bound on the running time of a Python script, what is the easiest way to achieve that?

Answer 1

on Unix you could use signal.alarm.

Answer 2

Just for your information: this is much self-descriptive to use multiplication when you set up timers, for example alarm(24 * 60 * 60) for 24 hours, instead of alarm(86400) for the same period. Hope this will help keep your code clean and easy-maintainable :)