[Matplotlib-users] timer objects in macosx backend

[Justin L. <jl...@gm...>]

Hi all,

I'm using a timer object to interact with the MPL event loop on my OS X 
laptop. However, it seems to be missing a few key methods that are 
making using it a little difficult. In particular, I can't find a way to 
stop the timer from sending events:

         $ ipython --pylab

    In [1]: def fun():
        ...:     for i in range(5):
        ...:         print "We're having fun!"; yield
        ...:     for i in range(5):
        ...:         print "Too much fun..."; yield
        ...:     while True:
        ...:         print "Stop the fun! No more!"; yield

    In [2]: f = fun().next

    In [3]: fig = plt.figure()

    In [4]: t = fig.canvas.new_timer()

    In [5]: t.add_callback(f)

    In [6]: t.start()

    In [7]: t.stop()

    In [8]: del t  # It's all over now...


It looks like the stop method may never have been implemented:

    In [3]: t.stop??
    Type:       instancemethod
    String Form:<bound method TimerMac.stop of Timer object 0x106ba33b0
    wrapping CFRunLoopTimerRef 0x0>
    File: /usr/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/matplotlib/backend_bases.py
    Definition: t.stop(self)
    Source:
         def stop(self):
             '''
             Stop the timer.
             '''
             self._timer_stop()

    In [4]: t._timer_stop??
    Type:       instancemethod
    String Form:<bound method TimerMac._timer_stop of Timer object
    0x106ba33b0 wrapping CFRunLoopTimerRef 0x0>
    File: /usr/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/matplotlib/backend_bases.py
    Definition: t._timer_stop(self)
    Source:
         def _timer_stop(self):
             pass


I'm able to remove the callback function from the timer's callback list, 
but I suspect that won't stop the events from being triggered. But I'd 
really prefer to completely stop the timer events, since in my 
application I may end up going through many timers.

Is this the expected behavior? Is there an easy fix I'm overlooking?

Version info:

    In [3]: sys.version
    Out[3]: '2.7.3 (default, Feb 19 2013, 18:00:31) \n[GCC 4.2.1
    Compatible Apple LLVM 4.2 (clang-425.0.24)]'

    In [4]: mpl.__version__
    Out[4]: '1.2.0'


Thanks,
Justin