How to pass current object reference(self) to the Timer class of timeit module?

Question

Hello everyone,
I am trying to pass current object reference i.e. self to the Timer class of timeit module but somehow i am not getting it how to do it. I tried to find it in timeit documentation but i could not find it. I have attached my code with this question.

from timeit import Timer
import time  
import math

class PollingDemo(Thread):

    def __init__(self):
        pass

    def looper(self):

        while 1:
            try:
                T = Timer("self.my_func()")
                #T = Timer("polling.my_func()", "from __main__ import polling")
                time_elapsed = T.timeit(1)

                if math.ceil(time_elapsed) == 1:
                    print "Process is sleeped for 1 sec"
                    time.sleep(1)

            except KeyboardInterrupt:
                return

    def my_func(self):
        pass

if __name__ == '__main__':

    polling = PollingDemo()
    polling.looper()  

In this example i have tried to call my_func() method of PollingDemo class through Timer class timeit() method but i am getting "NameError: global name 'self' is not defined" error. if we tried to access that object through main it works (Next commented line works perfectly). Can someone please why is this behavior so.
Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

Don't use a string, Timer also accepts callables, so pass a reference bound to self directly, i.e.

T = Timer(self.my_func)

(just the reference, don't call it).

If you need more complex setup, again wrap it in a function or method and pass that method.