Try and compare the time printouts of these two code samples:
Code Sample 1
import time
delay = 5
while True:
now = time.time()
print time.strftime("%H:%M:%S", time.localtime(now))
# As you will observe, this will take about 2 seconds,
# making the loop iterate every 5 + 2 seconds or so.
## repeat 5000 times
for i in range(5000):
sum(range(10000))
# This will sleep for 5 more seconds
time.sleep(delay)
Code Sample 2
import time
delay = 5
while True:
now = time.time()
print time.strftime("%H:%M:%S", time.localtime(now))
# As you will observe, this will take about 2 seconds,
# but the loop will iterate every 5 seconds because code
# execution time was accounted for.
## repeat 5000 times
for i in range(5000):
sum(range(10000))
# This will sleep for as long as it takes to get to the
# next 5-second mark
time.sleep(delay - (time.time() - now))