Raise a timeout exception after X seconds

Problem
You make a call that may stuck (for instance downloading a webpage). How to timeout after some time?

Solution
I found the following tip at http://stackoverflow.com/questions/8464391 (Unix only):

import signal
import time

def test_request(arg=None):
    """Your http request."""
    time.sleep(2)
    return arg

class Timeout():
    """Timeout class using ALARM signal."""
    class Timeout(Exception):
        pass

    def __init__(self, sec):
        self.sec = sec

    def __enter__(self):
        signal.signal(signal.SIGALRM, self.raise_timeout)
        signal.alarm(self.sec)

    def __exit__(self, *args):
        signal.alarm(0)    # disable alarm

    def raise_timeout(self, *args):
        raise Timeout.Timeout()

def main():
    # Run block of code with timeouts
    try:
        with Timeout(3):
            print test_request("Request 1")
        with Timeout(1):
            print test_request("Request 2")
    except Timeout.Timeout:
        print "Timeout"

#############################################################################

if __name__ == "__main__":
    main()

Note that time for signal.alarm must be specified in seconds (integer value).

Output:

Request 1
Timeout

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