from db import cursor, connection import threading import time def cleanup(): now = int( time.time() * 1000 ) old_games = cursor.execute("select game_id from games where (status = \"wait_for_opponent\" or status = \"in_progress\") and last_activity < ?", [now - 5 * 60 * 1e3]).fetchall() for game_id in old_games: cursor.execute("delete from games where game_id = ?", [game_id[0]]) connection.commit() def set_interval(func, sec): # https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2697039/python-equivalent-of-setinterval def func_wrapper(): set_interval(func, sec) func() t = threading.Timer(sec, func_wrapper) t.start() return t set_interval(cleanup, 5 * 60)