Timer in C (like in Java)

[Alexander Mahone]

Hello, I need a facility in C, like a set of functions, to manage a
timer: I should be able to initialize it with a certain period of time
(like x msec), start it, and every x msec it should execute a certain
function. In a few words, I need something like the java.util.Timer
class, but for C (of course not a class).
Do you know of any implementation of something like that (if possible
real-time)?
Thanks a lot

[santosh]

Antoninus Twink wrote:

On 23 Apr 2008 at 22:34, Keith Thompson wrote:

>ro******@ibd.nr c-cnrc.gc.ca (Walter Roberson) writes:

>>sleep() is not part of standard C. It is a common operating system
extension, but the original poster did not specify an OS.

Furthermore, it's defined differently on different systems. On POSIX
systems, for example, the argument is a number of seconds.

You're right, but there are also usleep and nanosleep, for shorter
intervals.

I think the OP wants something that will interrupt the program
periodically. I think some versions of nanosleep will do this, but as
Walter Roberson has rightly observed, the OP is better of consulting in
a platform specific group. His best bet might be setitimer/getitimer or
the timer_* group of functions.

[Antoninus Twink]

On 24 Apr 2008 at 19:17, santosh wrote:

Antoninus Twink wrote:

>You're right, but there are also usleep and nanosleep, for shorter
intervals.

I think the OP wants something that will interrupt the program
periodically. I think some versions of nanosleep will do this

[snip]

His best bet might be setitimer/getitimer or the timer_* group of
functions.

Oops, sorry, I lost sight of what the OP had asked amidst all the
bluster.

Yes, setitimer should be just the ticket.

[Alexander Mahone]

On 24 Apr, 22:08, Antoninus Twink <nos...@nospam. invalidwrote:

On 24 Apr 2008 at 19:17, santosh wrote:

Antoninus Twink wrote:

You're right, but there are also usleep and nanosleep, for shorter
intervals.

I think the OP wants something that will interrupt the program
periodically. I think some versions of nanosleep will do this

[snip]

His best bet might be setitimer/getitimer or the timer_* group of
functions.

Oops, sorry, I lost sight of what the OP had asked amidst all the
bluster.

Yes, setitimer should be just the ticket.

OK, I read various documentation on the Internet, but I think neither
ualarm() or setitimer() satisfy me completely. What I need to do, in
fact, is create a series of different timers, like timer objects, each
one referrable, with some kind of reference (a pointer or any other
way to refer to it in the future). Then, under certain conditions, I
need to reset one or more of them (that's why I need some way to refer
to every single timer specificly), to prevent them sending the
SIGALARM.
From what I've read, both ualarm() and setitimer() (the first of based
on the second) allows you to manage one single global timer, the one
of the caller process...
So, in my opinion (correct me if I'm wrong, my knownledge of C is
quite limited) the only 2 ways to do this would be:
1 - Create a series of threads, one for each timer I want to create,
and inside each thread call ualarm()...Or maybe I'd need to create
child processes, instead of threads?
2 - Use a series of timer_create(), without the need to create any per-
timer thread...
Is there a simpler and more lightweight way to do this?
Thanks a lot

[santosh]

Alexander Mahone wrote:

On 24 Apr, 22:08, Antoninus Twink <nos...@nospam. invalidwrote:

>On 24 Apr 2008 at 19:17, santosh wrote:

Antoninus Twink wrote:
You're right, but there are also usleep and nanosleep, for shorter
intervals.

I think the OP wants something that will interrupt the program
periodically. I think some versions of nanosleep will do this

[snip]

His best bet might be setitimer/getitimer or the timer_* group of
functions.

Oops, sorry, I lost sight of what the OP had asked amidst all the
bluster.

Yes, setitimer should be just the ticket.

OK, I read various documentation on the Internet, but I think neither
ualarm() or setitimer() satisfy me completely. What I need to do, in
fact, is create a series of different timers, like timer objects, each
one referrable, with some kind of reference (a pointer or any other
way to refer to it in the future). Then, under certain conditions, I
need to reset one or more of them (that's why I need some way to refer
to every single timer specificly), to prevent them sending the
SIGALARM.
From what I've read, both ualarm() and setitimer() (the first of based
on the second) allows you to manage one single global timer, the one
of the caller process...
So, in my opinion (correct me if I'm wrong, my knownledge of C is
quite limited) the only 2 ways to do this would be:
1 - Create a series of threads, one for each timer I want to create,
and inside each thread call ualarm()...Or maybe I'd need to create
child processes, instead of threads?
2 - Use a series of timer_create(), without the need to create any
per- timer thread...
Is there a simpler and more lightweight way to do this?
Thanks a lot

Please ask this <news:comp.unix .programmerwher e you will surely
receive much better responses than here. Standard C has no facilities
for creating timers.

[Antoninus Twink]

On 28 Apr 2008 at 13:21, Alexander Mahone wrote:

OK, I read various documentation on the Internet, but I think neither
ualarm() or setitimer() satisfy me completely. What I need to do, in
fact, is create a series of different timers, like timer objects, each
one referrable, with some kind of reference (a pointer or any other
way to refer to it in the future). Then, under certain conditions, I
need to reset one or more of them (that's why I need some way to refer
to every single timer specificly), to prevent them sending the
SIGALARM.
From what I've read, both ualarm() and setitimer() (the first of based
on the second) allows you to manage one single global timer, the one
of the caller process...

Well, you can squeeze out three, producing the different signals
SIGALRM, SIGVTALRM and SIGPROF, but yes, there's a strictly limited
number of timers available to each process.

The usual way around this is to implement multiple timers by hand: set
up an ordered queue of timers, and as one expires initialize the next
one along.

Of course, that's a pain, and so people have already done it and put it
into libraries for you to use - a good one is libevent
(http://monkey.org/~provos/libevent/).