all Python 3timefunction

time.sleep()

waiting

Suspends the current thread for the given number of seconds; a fraction such as 0.5 is allowed.

Syntax

time.sleep(seconds)

The pause blocks the whole thread: inside an async function time.sleep() stalls the event loop and every task, use await asyncio.sleep() there. The argument is seconds, not milliseconds: sleep(500) is more than eight minutes. Sleep can last longer than requested (OS scheduling), but since 3.5 not shorter unless a signal handler raises; Ctrl+C interrupts it with KeyboardInterrupt. A negative value raises ValueError.

Examples

import time
t0 = time.monotonic()
time.sleep(0.05)
print(time.monotonic() - t0 >= 0.05)  # → True

import time
try:
    time.sleep(-1)
except ValueError as e:
    print(e)  # → sleep length must be non-negative

See also

Common errors

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