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

考虑到@iman对@JakeBiesinger回答的评论,我重新组合了它,使其具有不同数量的线程:

from multiprocessing.pool import ThreadPool

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

numOfThreads = 3 
results = []

pool = ThreadPool(numOfThreads)

for i in range(0, numOfThreads):
    results.append(pool.apply_async(foo, ('world', 'foo'))) # tuple of args for foo)

# do some other stuff in the main process
# ...
# ...

results = [r.get() for r in results]
print results

pool.close()
pool.join()

其他回答

Kindall在Python3中的回答

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

    def run(self):
        try:
            if self._target:
                self._return = self._target(*self._args, **self._kwargs)
        finally:
            del self._target, self._args, self._kwargs 

    def join(self,timeout=None):
        Thread.join(self,timeout)
        return self._return

我发现做到这一点的最短和最简单的方法是利用Python类及其动态属性。您可以使用threading.current_thread()从派生线程的上下文中检索当前线程,并将返回值赋给一个属性。

import threading

def some_target_function():
    # Your code here.
    threading.current_thread().return_value = "Some return value."

your_thread = threading.Thread(target=some_target_function)
your_thread.start()
your_thread.join()

return_value = your_thread.return_value
print(return_value)

Jake的回答很好,但如果您不想使用线程池(您不知道需要多少线程,但可以根据需要创建它们),那么在线程之间传输信息的一个好方法是内置的Queue。队列类,因为它提供线程安全性。

我创建了以下装饰器,使其以类似于线程池的方式工作:

def threaded(f, daemon=False):
    import Queue

    def wrapped_f(q, *args, **kwargs):
        '''this function calls the decorated function and puts the 
        result in a queue'''
        ret = f(*args, **kwargs)
        q.put(ret)

    def wrap(*args, **kwargs):
        '''this is the function returned from the decorator. It fires off
        wrapped_f in a new thread and returns the thread object with
        the result queue attached'''

        q = Queue.Queue()

        t = threading.Thread(target=wrapped_f, args=(q,)+args, kwargs=kwargs)
        t.daemon = daemon
        t.start()
        t.result_queue = q        
        return t

    return wrap

然后你就把它用作:

@threaded
def long_task(x):
    import time
    x = x + 5
    time.sleep(5)
    return x

# does not block, returns Thread object
y = long_task(10)
print y

# this blocks, waiting for the result
result = y.result_queue.get()
print result

装饰函数每次被调用时都会创建一个新线程,并返回一个thread对象,其中包含将接收结果的队列。

更新

自从我发布这个答案已经有一段时间了,但它仍然得到了观看,所以我想我应该更新它,以反映我在新版本的Python中这样做的方式:

Python 3.2并发添加。期货模块,为并行任务提供高级接口。它提供了ThreadPoolExecutor和ProcessPoolExecutor,因此您可以使用具有相同api的线程或进程池。

该api的一个好处是将任务提交给Executor将返回一个Future对象,该对象将以您提交的可调用对象的返回值结束。

这使得附加队列对象成为不必要的,这大大简化了装饰器:

_DEFAULT_POOL = ThreadPoolExecutor()

def threadpool(f, executor=None):
    @wraps(f)
    def wrap(*args, **kwargs):
        return (executor or _DEFAULT_POOL).submit(f, *args, **kwargs)

    return wrap

如果没有传入,将使用默认的模块线程池执行器。

用法和前面的非常相似:

@threadpool
def long_task(x):
    import time
    x = x + 5
    time.sleep(5)
    return x

# does not block, returns Future object
y = long_task(10)
print y

# this blocks, waiting for the result
result = y.result()
print result

如果您使用的是Python 3.4+,那么使用此方法(以及一般的Future对象)的一个非常好的特性是可以将返回的Future对象包装起来以将其转换为asyncio。使用asyncio.wrap_future。这使得它很容易与协程一起工作:

result = await asyncio.wrap_future(long_task(10))

如果您不需要访问底层并发。对象,你可以在装饰器中包含wrap:

_DEFAULT_POOL = ThreadPoolExecutor()

def threadpool(f, executor=None):
    @wraps(f)
    def wrap(*args, **kwargs):
        return asyncio.wrap_future((executor or _DEFAULT_POOL).submit(f, *args, **kwargs))

    return wrap

然后,当你需要将cpu密集型代码或阻塞代码从事件循环线程中推出时,你可以将它放在装饰函数中:

@threadpool
def some_long_calculation():
    ...

# this will suspend while the function is executed on a threadpool
result = await some_long_calculation()

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

如上所述,多处理池比基本线程要慢得多。使用一些回答中提出的队列是一种非常有效的替代方法。我已经将它与字典一起使用,以便能够运行许多小线程,并通过将它们与字典结合来恢复多个答案:

#!/usr/bin/env python3

import threading
# use Queue for python2
import queue
import random

LETTERS = 'abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz'
LETTERS = [ x for x in LETTERS ]

NUMBERS = [0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9]

def randoms(k, q):
    result = dict()
    result['letter'] = random.choice(LETTERS)
    result['number'] = random.choice(NUMBERS)
    q.put({k: result})

threads = list()
q = queue.Queue()
results = dict()

for name in ('alpha', 'oscar', 'yankee',):
    threads.append( threading.Thread(target=randoms, args=(name, q)) )
    threads[-1].start()
_ = [ t.join() for t in threads ]
while not q.empty():
    results.update(q.get())

print(results)