Parallel Processing in Python with Robot

[woooee]

A simple program (with messy output) to start a counter (robot moving) while getting info from the keyboard. See Doug Hellmann's Python Module of the Week, "Managing Shared State" at https://pymotw.com/3/multiprocessing/communication.html You create a Manager Dictionary, pass it to the process per the example at PyMOTW, and then use it like a regular dictionary from within or outside of the process.

import time
from multiprocessing import Process

def another_process(spaces):
        ctr=1

        print("spaces", len(spaces))
        while True:
            print(spaces, ctr)
            ctr += 1
            time.sleep(1)

if __name__ == "__main__":
    spaces=""
    ## start with one running process
    processes_list=[]
    p=Process(target=another_process, args=(spaces,))
    p.start()
    processes_list.append(p)

    while True:
      option=input('''"s" to start another process
"q" to quit this program ''')
      option=option.lower()
      if "s" == option:
        spaces += "     "
        p=Process(target=another_process, args=(spaces,))
        p.start()
        processes_list.append(p)
      elif "q" == option:
        for p in processes_list:
            p.terminate()
            p.join()
        break