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@walkermatt
Created June 4, 2012 21:44
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A debounce function decorator in Python similar to the one in underscore.js, tested with 2.7
from threading import Timer
def debounce(wait):
""" Decorator that will postpone a functions
execution until after wait seconds
have elapsed since the last time it was invoked. """
def decorator(fn):
def debounced(*args, **kwargs):
def call_it():
fn(*args, **kwargs)
try:
debounced.t.cancel()
except(AttributeError):
pass
debounced.t = Timer(wait, call_it)
debounced.t.start()
return debounced
return decorator
import unittest
import time
from debounce import debounce
class TestDebounce(unittest.TestCase):
@debounce(10)
def increment(self):
""" Simple function that
increments a counter when
called, used to test the
debounce function decorator """
self.count += 1
def setUp(self):
self.count = 0
def test_debounce(self):
""" Test that the increment
function is being debounced.
The counter should only be incremented
once 10 seconds after the last call
to the function """
self.assertTrue(self.count == 0)
self.increment()
self.increment()
time.sleep(9)
self.assertTrue(self.count == 0)
self.increment()
self.increment()
self.increment()
self.increment()
self.assertTrue(self.count == 0)
time.sleep(10)
self.assertTrue(self.count == 1)
if __name__ == '__main__':
unittest.main()
@jamesbraza
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jamesbraza commented Oct 22, 2020

Didn't know about threading.Timer, I like this solution!

An optimization would be to protect the Timer creation using a threading.Lock. This would prevent problems with debounce being called between Timer's initialization and calling .start().

Another would be to use functools.wraps to preserve docstrings.

@KarlPatach
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Hi everyone ! A few months ago I had the same need to have a working debounce annotation, after stumbling upon this discussion I created this open source project: https://github.com/salesforce/decorator-operations

The idea of the project is to regroup useful annotations such as debounce, throttle, filter... There are only 4 annotations available for now, but you're more than welcome to suggest new features or suggestions on how to improve the existing ones :D

@yurenchen000
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yurenchen000 commented Feb 18, 2022

👍 thanks for sharing

@KarlPatach that sounds good 👍

// feature 1
In addition to debounce and throttle
also has a situation, which can has both feature.

if calls too frequently, the executor may delayed indefinitely.
some states cannot be updated in time.
then wish debounce has a max delay time allow execute one time.
// I don't known how to call it, has a debounce time, and a max delay time

// feature 2
if asyncio version has supported, that will be nice.


// finally
I wonder is them thread safe

@walkermatt
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Author

@KarlPatach That's awesome 🎉

@llllvvuu
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llllvvuu commented Sep 10, 2023

My implementation (fully-typed and thread-safe):

import threading
from typing import Any, Callable, Optional, TypeVar, cast

class Debouncer:
    def __init__(self, f: Callable[..., Any], interval: float):
        self.f = f
        self.interval = interval
        self._timer: Optional[threading.Timer] = None
        self._lock = threading.Lock()

    def __call__(self, *args, **kwargs) -> None:
        with self._lock:
            if self._timer is not None:
                self._timer.cancel()
            self._timer = threading.Timer(self.interval, self.f, args, kwargs)
            self._timer.start()


VoidFunction = TypeVar("VoidFunction", bound=Callable[..., None])


def debounce(interval: float):
    """
    Wait `interval` seconds before calling `f`, and cancel if called again.
    The decorated function will return None immediately,
    ignoring the delayed return value of `f`.
    """

    def decorator(f: VoidFunction) -> VoidFunction:
        if interval <= 0:
            return f
        return cast(VoidFunction, Debouncer(f, interval))

    return decorator

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