下面的函数foo返回一个字符串'foo'。我如何才能获得从线程的目标返回的值'foo' ?

from threading import Thread

def foo(bar):
    print('hello {}'.format(bar))
    return 'foo'
    
thread = Thread(target=foo, args=('world!',))
thread.start()
return_value = thread.join()

上面所示的“一种明显的方法”不起作用:thread.join()返回None。


当前回答

FWIW,多处理模块使用Pool类提供了一个很好的接口。如果您希望坚持使用线程而不是进程,可以直接使用multiprocessing.pool.ThreadPool类作为替代。

def foo(bar, baz):
  print 'hello {0}'.format(bar)
  return 'foo' + baz

from multiprocessing.pool import ThreadPool
pool = ThreadPool(processes=1)

async_result = pool.apply_async(foo, ('world', 'foo')) # tuple of args for foo

# do some other stuff in the main process

return_val = async_result.get()  # get the return value from your function.

其他回答

我偷了kindall的答案,稍微整理了一下。

关键部分是为join()添加*args和**kwargs,以便处理超时

class threadWithReturn(Thread):
    def __init__(self, *args, **kwargs):
        super(threadWithReturn, self).__init__(*args, **kwargs)
        
        self._return = None
    
    def run(self):
        if self._Thread__target is not None:
            self._return = self._Thread__target(*self._Thread__args, **self._Thread__kwargs)
    
    def join(self, *args, **kwargs):
        super(threadWithReturn, self).join(*args, **kwargs)
        
        return self._return

更新答案如下

这是我得到最多好评的答案,所以我决定更新可以在py2和py3上运行的代码。

此外,我看到许多对这个问题的回答都显示出对Thread.join()缺乏理解。有些完全不能处理timeout参数。但是当你有(1)一个可以返回None的目标函数并且(2)你也将timeout参数传递给join()时,还有一种极端情况你应该注意。请参阅“TEST 4”以理解这个极端情况。

ThreadWithReturn类,用于py2和py3:

import sys
from threading import Thread
from builtins import super    # https://stackoverflow.com/a/30159479

_thread_target_key, _thread_args_key, _thread_kwargs_key = (
    ('_target', '_args', '_kwargs')
    if sys.version_info >= (3, 0) else
    ('_Thread__target', '_Thread__args', '_Thread__kwargs')
)

class ThreadWithReturn(Thread):
    def __init__(self, *args, **kwargs):
        super().__init__(*args, **kwargs)
        self._return = None
    
    def run(self):
        target = getattr(self, _thread_target_key)
        if target is not None:
            self._return = target(
                *getattr(self, _thread_args_key),
                **getattr(self, _thread_kwargs_key)
            )
    
    def join(self, *args, **kwargs):
        super().join(*args, **kwargs)
        return self._return

一些示例测试如下所示:

import time, random

# TEST TARGET FUNCTION
def giveMe(arg, seconds=None):
    if not seconds is None:
        time.sleep(seconds)
    return arg

# TEST 1
my_thread = ThreadWithReturn(target=giveMe, args=('stringy',))
my_thread.start()
returned = my_thread.join()
# (returned == 'stringy')

# TEST 2
my_thread = ThreadWithReturn(target=giveMe, args=(None,))
my_thread.start()
returned = my_thread.join()
# (returned is None)

# TEST 3
my_thread = ThreadWithReturn(target=giveMe, args=('stringy',), kwargs={'seconds': 5})
my_thread.start()
returned = my_thread.join(timeout=2)
# (returned is None) # because join() timed out before giveMe() finished

# TEST 4
my_thread = ThreadWithReturn(target=giveMe, args=(None,), kwargs={'seconds': 5})
my_thread.start()
returned = my_thread.join(timeout=random.randint(1, 10))

你能确定我们在测试4中可能遇到的极端情况吗?

问题是我们期望giveMe()返回None(参见TEST 2),但我们也期望join()在超时时返回None。

None表示:

(1)这就是giveMe()返回的,或者

(2) join()超时

这个例子很简单,因为我们知道giveMe()总是返回None。但在真实的实例中(目标可能返回None或其他内容),我们希望显式地检查发生了什么。

下面是如何解决这种极端情况:

# TEST 4
my_thread = ThreadWithReturn(target=giveMe, args=(None,), kwargs={'seconds': 5})
my_thread.start()
returned = my_thread.join(timeout=random.randint(1, 10))

if my_thread.isAlive():
    # returned is None because join() timed out
    # this also means that giveMe() is still running in the background
    pass
    # handle this based on your app's logic
else:
    # join() is finished, and so is giveMe()
    # BUT we could also be in a race condition, so we need to update returned, just in case
    returned = my_thread.join()

我见过的一种方法是将一个可变对象(如列表或字典)传递给线程的构造函数,同时传递一个索引或其他某种类型的标识符。然后线程可以将结果存储在该对象的专用槽中。例如:

def foo(bar, result, index):
    print 'hello {0}'.format(bar)
    result[index] = "foo"

from threading import Thread

threads = [None] * 10
results = [None] * 10

for i in range(len(threads)):
    threads[i] = Thread(target=foo, args=('world!', results, i))
    threads[i].start()

# do some other stuff

for i in range(len(threads)):
    threads[i].join()

print " ".join(results)  # what sound does a metasyntactic locomotive make?

如果你真的想要join()返回被调用函数的返回值,你可以用Thread子类来实现,如下所示:

from threading import Thread

def foo(bar):
    print 'hello {0}'.format(bar)
    return "foo"

class ThreadWithReturnValue(Thread):
    def __init__(self, group=None, target=None, name=None,
                 args=(), kwargs={}, Verbose=None):
        Thread.__init__(self, group, target, name, args, kwargs, Verbose)
        self._return = None
    def run(self):
        if self._Thread__target is not None:
            self._return = self._Thread__target(*self._Thread__args,
                                                **self._Thread__kwargs)
    def join(self):
        Thread.join(self)
        return self._return

twrv = ThreadWithReturnValue(target=foo, args=('world!',))

twrv.start()
print twrv.join()   # prints foo

这有点麻烦,因为一些名称混乱,它访问特定于线程实现的“私有”数据结构……但它确实有效。

对于Python 3:

class ThreadWithReturnValue(Thread):
    
    def __init__(self, group=None, target=None, name=None,
                 args=(), kwargs={}, Verbose=None):
        Thread.__init__(self, group, target, name, args, kwargs)
        self._return = None

    def run(self):
        if self._target is not None:
            self._return = self._target(*self._args,
                                                **self._kwargs)
    def join(self, *args):
        Thread.join(self, *args)
        return self._return

另一个不需要更改现有代码的解决方案:

import Queue             # Python 2.x
#from queue import Queue # Python 3.x

from threading import Thread

def foo(bar):
    print 'hello {0}'.format(bar)     # Python 2.x
    #print('hello {0}'.format(bar))   # Python 3.x
    return 'foo'

que = Queue.Queue()      # Python 2.x
#que = Queue()           # Python 3.x

t = Thread(target=lambda q, arg1: q.put(foo(arg1)), args=(que, 'world!'))
t.start()
t.join()
result = que.get()
print result             # Python 2.x
#print(result)           # Python 3.x

它也可以很容易地调整到多线程环境:

import Queue             # Python 2.x
#from queue import Queue # Python 3.x
from threading import Thread

def foo(bar):
    print 'hello {0}'.format(bar)     # Python 2.x
    #print('hello {0}'.format(bar))   # Python 3.x
    return 'foo'

que = Queue.Queue()      # Python 2.x
#que = Queue()           # Python 3.x

threads_list = list()

t = Thread(target=lambda q, arg1: q.put(foo(arg1)), args=(que, 'world!'))
t.start()
threads_list.append(t)

# Add more threads here
...
threads_list.append(t2)
...
threads_list.append(t3)
...

# Join all the threads
for t in threads_list:
    t.join()

# Check thread's return value
while not que.empty():
    result = que.get()
    print result         # Python 2.x
    #print(result)       # Python 3.x

join总是返回None,我认为你应该子类化Thread来处理返回代码等。

根据上面提到的,下面是适用于Python3的更通用的解决方案。

import threading

class ThreadWithReturnValue(threading.Thread):
    def __init__(self, *init_args, **init_kwargs):
        threading.Thread.__init__(self, *init_args, **init_kwargs)
        self._return = None
    def run(self):
        self._return = self._target(*self._args, **self._kwargs)
    def join(self):
        threading.Thread.join(self)
        return self._return

使用

        th = ThreadWithReturnValue(target=requests.get, args=('http://www.google.com',))
        th.start()
        response = th.join()
        response.status_code  # => 200