Using signal in python for molly!

gistfile1.py

def handler(signum, frame):
    raise Exception('Last Resort!')

signal.signal(signal.SIGALRM, handler)

def tryOpenParse(thisurl):
    global parser
    #print "trying to parse " + thisurl
    print "trying to parse..."
    loaded = False
    counter = 0
    tree = None
    while ((not loaded) and (counter<5)):
        if counter>0:
            print "Failed so far: ", counter
            print thisurl        
        if counter>10:
            return None
        try:
            counter+=1
            signal.alarm(5)
            u = urllib2.urlopen(thisurl)            
            tree = etree.parse(u, parser)
            signal.alarm(0)
            loaded = True            
        except Exception,e:
            print e
            signal.alarm(0)            
            time.sleep(5*random.random())
    print "...done!"
    return tree