How to create a loop based on time (a.k.a "Heartbeat")

[v0id]

I'm wondering how can I create a time-based loop that runs based on a certain interval i.e. something similar to:

while 1:
# do something
time.sleep(1)

but more elegant and "balanced", in the above example if "do something" takes 500ms then the actual loop'll run every 1.5 instead of 1 second, and if this "do something" varies, the loop itself's unstable too.

Any suggestions?

[Glenton]

You could use the built in time functions.

Something like this:

while 1:
    now=time.time()
    print time.time()-now, "doing something"
    time.sleep(max[0,1-(time.time()-now)])