timed loop in python

import time

while True:
    print time.strftime('%X')  # some action
    time.sleep(2)              # two seconds to make it more visible

"But I don't want it to stop everything while it is doing this. I just want it to run silently in the back ground."

Please clarify the requirement. Especially these phrases:
"stop everything"
"run silently"  
"in the back ground"

If your script to be run in the loop is the Python script, then you should put its body into definition of a function. The main() is used usually for the purpose. The usual way to have a script that can be also run as a module is to test for the __name__ attribute:

myscript.py
===================
def main():
    import time
    print time.strftime('%X')


if __name__ == '__main__':
    main()
===================

This way the body inside the main() will be called when the script is executed from command line. But the same body can be executed as a function from inside a module through call myscript.main():

===================
import time
import myscript

while True:
    myscript.main()
    time.sleep(2)    # two seconds to make it more visible
===================

If the script to be executed in the loop is not in Python, you can use the os.system() to launch the system command interpreter (shell or cmd):

===================
import time
import os

while True:
    os.system('echo 123')
    time.sleep(2)    # two seconds to make it more visible
===================

In Unix, use normal way to put the executed script to the background. In Windows, run the script.py not through the python.exe, but through pythonw.exe. For the last example, you will see the cmd window flashing because of the echo command displayed in the cmd window. When no visible output is produced, you will not see anything on the display.

Well this is what i have.  But when it runs it stops everything, I would like to spawn this as a child.  So it runs by it's self indpendent of the parent. So the parent can continue and let this one just keep running.

def timers():

      
      while (1):
            import nt
            import time
            print "begin"
            c1 = nt.times()
            cpu = c1[0] + c1[1]
            print cpu
            #nt.system('start cmd')
            print "exiting"
            time.sleep(20)

timers()

Ok let me explain this a little better.  We run program called abaqus the back end of it is python.  We have the ablity to run scripts when it starts up.  But When I run the above script it is spawned inline I am assuming so it waits while the count down occurs and locks up the program.  The for the split second that it checks the cpu it frees up the program.  So what I would like to do is spawn this script as a sperate thread, so that it doesn't stop the current program.

Thanks
Fixitben

Well those helped me get to the answer. Thanks for ya'lls help.

Thanks
Fixiten