Python:Django: Signal handler and main thread

Question

I am building a django application which depends on a python module where a SIGINT signal handler has been implemented.

Assuming I cannot change the module I am dependent from, how can I workaround the "signal only works in main thread" error I get integrating it in Django ?

Can I run it on the Django main thread? Is there a way to inhibit the handler to allow the module to run on non-main threads ?

Thanks!

Answer 1

Django's built-in development server has auto-reload feature enabled by default which spawns a new thread as a means of reloading code. To work around this you can simply do the following, although you'd obviously lose the convenience of auto-reloading:

python manage.py runserver --noreload

You'll also need to be mindful of this when choosing your production setup. At least some of the deployment options (such as threaded fastcgi) are certain to execute your code outside main thread.

Answer 2

I use Python 3.5 and Django 1.8.5 with my project, and I met a similar problem recently. I can easily run my xxx.py code with SIGNAL directly, but it can't be executed on Django as a package just because of the error "signal only works in main thread".

Firstly, runserver with --noreload --nothreading is usable but it runs my multi-thread code too slow for me.

Secondly, I found that code in __init__.py of my package ran in the main thread. But, of course, only the main thread can catch this signal, my code in package can't catch it at all. It can't solve my problem, although, it may be a solution for you.

Finally, I found that there is a built-in module named subprocess in Python. It means you can run a sub real complete process with it, that is to say, this process has its own main thread, so you can run your code with SIGNAL easily here. Though I don't know the performance with using it, it works well for me. PS, you can find all details about subprocess in Python Documentation.

Thank you~