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The multiprocessing.JoinableQueue's function join() should have a timeout argument so that one can check on other things while waiting for a queue to finish.
As join() uses a condition to wait anyway, a timeout is easily implemented and passed to the Condidition.wait(). Patch is attached.

I notice that queue.Queue.join() does not have a timeout parameter either.
Have you hit a particular problem that would be substantially easier with the patch?

Actually, I would like to check if the threads working on the queue are still alive. 
However, it occurs to me now that I would need a facility to distinguish between a timeout and an actual join. Unfortunately, my original patch does not provide this, one would have to implement an additional check and think about the correct way to signal a timeout.
Also, there seem to be other people looking for this feature: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1564501/add-timeout-argument-to-pythons-queue-join 

Another option is instead of adding a timeout parameter, a new function to check if everything is done. Like:
def all_tasks_finished(self)
 return self._unfinished_tasks._semlock._is_zero()
Which can then be utilized exactly shown in the above noted stackoverflow answer. This way it will be consistent with queue.py