Borislav Hadzhiev
Wed Apr 20 2022·1 min read
Photo by Raychan
The Python "NameError: name 'sleep' is not defined" occurs when we use the
sleep()
function without importing it first. To solve the error, import the
function from the time
module before using it - from time import sleep
.
Here is an example of how the error occurs.
# ⛔️ NameError: name 'sleep' is not defined sleep(3) print('After 3 seconds')
To solve the error, we have to import the sleep
function from the time
module.
# 👇️ import sleep function from time import sleep sleep(3) # 👈️ time in seconds print('After 3 seconds')
Alternatively, you can import the time
module and access the sleep
function
as time.sleep(N)
.
import time time.sleep(3) print('After 3 seconds')
The sleep function takes a number of seconds as a parameter and suspends execution for the given number of seconds.
If you need to call a function or run some logic every N seconds, use a while
loop.
import time while True: print('Runs every 3 seconds') time.sleep(3)
The code in the body of the while
loop is ran every 3
seconds.
You can also pass a floating point number as an argument to sleep
if you need
to suspend execution for X.Y
seconds.
import time time.sleep(2.5) print('After 2.5 seconds')
Note that the sleep()
function suspends execution at least for the provided
number of seconds, except in the case when an exception is raised.