multithreading - Start() vs run() for threads in Python?

Question

I'm a little bit confused.

I'm trying to start a thread in a loop, i.e.:

while True:
  my_thread.start()

I'm a little confused because I've had it working with my_thread.run(), but when I swapped it to start() it fails to start more than one thread. Is my .run() not actually a separate thread, and if not what should I be doing? Lastly, can I pass variables into start()?

Answer 1

You are correct in that run() does not spawn a separate thread. It runs the thread function in the context of the current thread.

It is not clear to me what you are trying to achieve by calling start() in a loop.

• If you want your thread to repeatedly do something, then move the loop into the thread function.
• If you want multiple threads, then create multiple Thread objects (and call start() once on each of them).

Finally, to pass arguments to a thread, pass args and kwargs to the Thread constructor.