Break loop on new command-CodePudding

I have a discord bot that controls some RGB lights. I want a pattern to repeat. However, I need the loop to break as soon as any new command is typed.

@client.command()
async def rainbow(ctx):
    await ctx.send("It is rainbow")
    while True:
     rainbow_cycle(0.001)

I know while true loops can't be broken but I do not know another way to loop this function. If the full code is needed here is the Github link https://github.com/MichaelMediaGroup/Discord_controlled_lights/blob/main/discord/main.py

Thank you for the help

CodePudding user response：

This isn't the best option I think but it should work:

You could create a new global value for the loop, like this:

loop = False;

@client.command()
async def rainbow(ctx):
    await ctx.send("It is rainbow")
    global loop
    loop = True
    while loop:
        rainbow_cycle(0.001)


@client.command()
async def anothercommand(ctx):
    global loop
    loop = False
    #Some other stuff here

CodePudding user response：

It may not be the best practice make a while loop here. Instead use tasks.loop() available in the discord module that you are using. Do note this has to manually imported from discord.ext So it'll look something like this :

from discord.ext import commands, tasks

@bot.command
async def rainbow(ctx):
    await ctx.send("It is rainbow")
    if rainbow_.is_running():
        rainbow_.stop()
    else:
        rainbow_.start()

@tasks.loop(seconds=0)
async def rainbow_():
    # Do your things here
    rainbow_cycle(0.001)

Now we have created a non-blocking loop, this loop can be started / stopped by using your command.

Do note :

1] Do not use blocking commands like sleep inside your tasks (if you want sleep, use asyncio.sleep(foo) instead

2] Do not not start rainbow_ under on_ready, because on_ready gets called multiple times and can create unnecessary instances, however if you do want to start task when ready then make sure it isn't already running first.