Python timeout snippet

timeout.py

#!/usr/bin/python
# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-

"""Taken from:
http://stackoverflow.com/a/22348885
http://stackoverflow.com/a/2282656"""

import signal


class TimeoutError(Exception):
    pass


class timeout:
    def __init__(self, seconds=1, error_message='Timeout'):
        self.seconds = seconds
        self.error_message = error_message
    def handle_timeout(self, signum, frame):
        raise TimeoutError(self.error_message)
    def __enter__(self):
        signal.signal(signal.SIGALRM, self.handle_timeout)
        signal.alarm(self.seconds)
    def __exit__(self, type, value, traceback):
        signal.alarm(0)

Usage:

from timeout import timeout

with timeout(seconds=3):
    sleep(4)