Best practice (python) for file-system repetative tasks?

Question

What is the best approach for a python utility script - checking for existence of new file and processing?

Normally, this process would be done with cron or a scheduled task, which is not allowed in this environment.

Is there a recommended or best practice to handle this task?

Currently, the script uses a "infinite loop" with a sleep timer in between executions, with an optional execution upper limit -- if the limit is set, it will only loop "n" times before quitting the process.

I am hoping that there is a better way to do this.

Limitations: This is a Linux platform, and we don't have a lot of the system-level access/utilities. Cron is not allowed. Installed version is Python 2.7.5 (until I can convince the owners that this will be a liability and that they should upgrade to a newer version).

Reasons:
I don't like "infinite loops".
I think that using the "sleep" is a questionable "make do" practice.
I feel that these are essentially taking control out of the programmers hands and leaving things hanging at the mercy of external events.
I don't know how well these perform at the system level. This is on a data processing server with mainly ETL processing running.

Does anybody have any thoughts / approaches?

I am open if the answer is "Nope, you don't really have alternatives in this case."

Answer 1

I think the python sched library has what you need.
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/33006683/schedule-python-script-to-run-every-sunday-without-cron
https://docs.python.org/2/library/sched.html