abs-sleep: Absolutely Timed Sleeps in Python

The abs-sleep package for Python 3 provides a thin wrapper around the ctypes module for calling clock_nanosleep on Linux with the TIMER_ABSTIME flag set. This allows for precisely timed sleeps that are not affected by timer drift (e.g., due to preemptions).

The two primary provided functions are:

• abs_sleep(wakeup_time, clock=time.CLOCK_MONOTONIC)
  Sleep until the absolute time wakeup_time (specified in seconds) is reached w.r.t. the specified clock (time.CLOCK_MONOTONIC by default).
• abs_nanosleep(wakeup_time_ns, clock=time.CLOCK_MONOTONIC)
  Sleep until the absolute time wakeup_time (specified in integral nanoseconds) is reached w.r.t. the specified clock (time.CLOCK_MONOTONIC by default).

They are intended to be used together with time.monotonic() and time.monotonic_ns(), respectively.

On POSIX platforms other than Linux, the library resorts to an inaccurate approximation.

Tested on Linux and macOS.

Example: Absolutely Timed Sleeps

from abs_sleep import abs_sleep, abs_nanosleep
import time

t = time.monotonic()
print('One sec...', end='', flush=True)
abs_sleep(t + 1)
print('done.')

t = time.monotonic_ns()
print('Five secs...', end='', flush=True)
abs_nanosleep(t + 5000000000)
print('done.')

Periodic Activations Iterators

Additionally, there are two convenience iterators that help with implementing periodic activations (w.r.t. time.CLOCK_MONOTONIC):

• periodic(period_secs)
• periodic_ns(period_nsecs)

These two iterators take a number of optional keyword arguments.

The release_jitter argument accepts a function iterator_state -> release jitter value that, given the current iterator state object, produces a release jitter value for the next release (e.g., lambda _it: 123). The time scale must match that of the iterator (i.e., seconds in case of periodic and integral nanoseconds in case of periodic_ns).

The sporadic_delay argument accepts a function iterator_state -> sporadic delay value that, given the current iterator state object, produces a sporadic inter-arrival delay value for the next release (e.g., lambda _it: 123). The time scale must match that of the iterator (i.e., seconds in case of periodic and integral nanoseconds in case of periodic_ns).

The difference between release jitter and sporadic inter-arrival delays is that release jitter affects only the next activation, whereas sporadic inter-arrival delay is cumulative (i.e., a delay > 0 implicitly delays all future activations, too).

The first three arguments (offset, start time, alignment) are useful for implementing periodic real-time tasks. The latter two arguments (release jitter and sporadic delay) are useful for simulating periodic and sporadic real-time task behavior.

Example: Periodic Activations

from abs_sleep import periodic, periodic_ns
import time

# periodic activations with a period of 200 milliseconds
for i, t in enumerate(periodic(0.2)):
    print(t)
    if i >= 4:
        break

# periodic activations with a period of 500 milliseconds, aligned to integral seconds
for i, t in enumerate(periodic(0.5, align_secs=1)):
    print(t)
    if i >= 4:
        break

# periodic activations with a period of 500 milliseconds, aligned to integral seconds
for i, t in enumerate(periodic_ns(500000000, align_nsecs=1000000000)):
    print(t)
    if i >= 4:
        break        
        
# periodic activations with a period of 200 milliseconds,
# first release aligned to an integer multiple of 2 seconds,
# and a fixed amount of release jitter (123 ms)
for i, t in enumerate(periodic(0.2, align_secs=2, release_jitter=lambda _it: 0.123)):
    print(t, time.monotonic())
    if i >= 4:
        break

# sporadic activations with a sporadic inter-arrival delay of 1000ns
for i, t in enumerate(periodic_ns(100000000, align_nsecs=2000000000, sporadic_delay=lambda it: 1000)):
    print(t, time.monotonic_ns())
    if i >= 4:
        break