How would I stop a while loop after n amount of time?

Try the following:

import time
timeout = time.time() + 60*5   # 5 minutes from now
while True:
    test = 0
    if test == 5 or time.time() > timeout:
        break
    test = test - 1

You may also want to add a short sleep here so this loop is not hogging CPU (for example time.sleep(1) at the beginning or end of the loop body).


You do not need to use the while True: loop in this case. There is a much simpler way to use the time condition directly:

import time

# timeout variable can be omitted, if you use specific value in the while condition
timeout = 300   # [seconds]

timeout_start = time.time()

while time.time() < timeout_start + timeout:
    test = 0
    if test == 5:
        break
    test -= 1