Python Threading String Arguments

I have a problem with Python threading and sending a string in the arguments.

def processLine(line) :
    print "hello";
    return;

.

dRecieved = connFile.readline();
processThread = threading.Thread(target=processLine, args=(dRecieved));
processThread.start();

Where dRecieved is the string of one line read by a connection. It calls a simple function which as of right now has only one job of printing "hello".

However I get the following error

Traceback (most recent call last):
File "C:\Python25\lib\threading.py", line 486, in __bootstrap_inner
self.run()
File "C:\Python25\lib\threading.py", line 446, in run
self.__target(*self.__args, **self.__kwargs)
TypeError: processLine() takes exactly 1 arguments (232 given)

232 is the length of the string that I am trying to pass, so I guess its breaking it up into each character and trying to pass the arguments like that. It works fine if I just call the function normally but I would really like to set it up as a separate thread.

You're trying to create a tuple, but you're just parenthesizing a string :)

Add an extra ',':

dRecieved = connFile.readline()
processThread = threading.Thread(target=processLine, args=(dRecieved,))  # <- note extra ','
processThread.start()

Or use brackets to make a list:

dRecieved = connFile.readline()
processThread = threading.Thread(target=processLine, args=[dRecieved])  # <- 1 element list
processThread.start()

---

If you notice, from the stack trace: self.__target(*self.__args, **self.__kwargs)

The *self.__args turns your string into a list of characters, passing them to the processLine function. If you pass it a one element list, it will pass that element as the first argument - in your case, the string.

I hope to provide more background knowledge here.

First, constructor signature of the of method threading::Thread:

class threading.Thread(group=None, target=None, name=None, args=(), kwargs={}, *, daemon=None)

> args is the argument tuple for the target invocation. Defaults to ().

Second, A quirk in Python about tuple:

> Empty tuples are constructed by an empty pair of parentheses; a tuple with one item is constructed by following a value with a comma (it is not sufficient to enclose a single value in parentheses).

On the other hand, a string is a sequence of characters, like 'abc'[1] == 'b'. So if send a string to args, even in parentheses (still a sting), each character will be treated as a single parameter.

However, Python is so integrated and is not like JavaScript where extra arguments can be tolerated. Instead, it throws an TypeError to complain.

from threading import Thread
from time import sleep
def run(name):
    for x in range(10):
        print("helo "+name)
        sleep(1)
def run1():
    for x in range(10):
        print("hi")
        sleep(1)
T=Thread(target=run,args=("Ayla",))
T1=Thread(target=run1)
T.start()
sleep(0.2)
T1.start()
T.join()
T1.join()
print("Bye")