In the documentation, the Timer() function of the threading class is
described as a class. however, it's a function :

>>> import threading
>>> threading.Timer
<function Timer at 0x967495c>

Cheers

Maxence

The Timer function is a simple wrapper for creating an instance of the
_Timer class.

The Timer class was proposed in Issue428326 by Itamar and applied
by Martin in r22972.  In the original patch the class was exposed as
Timer.  Martin's commit introduced the Timer function and _Timer class
name.  The documentation provided by Itamar was not updated to match.

The change would appear to intentionally make it difficult to create
Timer subclasses.

The Timer function/class was added in 2001 and there are no complaints
that Thread can't be subclassed in the tracker.  So perhaps a doc patch
is appropriate...but that would leave Timer with a name that is not PEP
8 compliant.

I think I'd prefer deleting the function and naming the class Timer,
so that it has a PEP 8 compliant name. It seems unlikely that any user
code would depend on Timer being a function.

Martin, do you have any memory of why you made Timer a function?  Was it
just that it would be pretty pointless to subclass it?

I deleted this function and I renamed the class _Timer to Timer. I
attached the patch

Nearly all classes in threading uses this function/class indirection, which I don’t understand (except for RLock, which is a factory function).

Explanation has been provided on #10968, and hopefully the code will be cleaned up.  Closing as superseded.

Note this is a behaviour change. Under the old scheme (Foo is a class)

Foo.timerclass = Timer

created a method, whereas now it will just assign the class as an attribute. To work around this you had to use _Timer. Will that dummy class remain as an alias to avoid breaking code (in 2.7 at least)?

Discussion should be moved to #10968, please.

superseder: threading.Timer should be a class so that it can be derived
resolution: duplicate
stage: resolved

messages: + msg121387

assignee: docs@python ->

nosy: + humitos
messages: + msg92260

keywords: + patch

components: + Library (Lib)
versions: - Python 2.5
keywords: + easy
nosy: + loewis, r.david.murray

messages: + msg86413