How to implement a timer for 48 hrs and about timestamping..

[rockkyy]

hi,

i am storing a random token and userid,clientdata etc on a STL map container with the unique token as the KEY and the structure containg userid,clientdata etc as the VALUE.

Now i want to delete a token-Structure pair every 2 days. How will i know a particular token has expired?

Can i add another value on to the structure containing a time stamp of when it was created? Then after every 2 days some timer will expire which will trigger a check on all the tokens one by one by comparing its time stamp with the current system time. If it is greater than say 48 hrs then delete it.

But i dont know which standard function to use(like time() ). Is there any library function which does timeout... or how to implement a 48 hrs timer. can any one please suggest how to go about implementing this.....

some pointers atleast ...i will do the digging and get back..

[Banfa]

you could use a time_t variable in the structure to record the time it was created as returned by time().

If the platform you are using doesn't timers then you will have to go into a loop and keep checking the current time (remembering not to block anything else the program does) against the token times. If available on your platform it would be a wise idea to put some sleep time into this loop.

[rockkyy]

thanku verymuch...

wat i plan to do is to include the time value in to the token value pair using the time() function..
now after every 48 hrs i can compare all the elements time value with the current time..
if difftime(

[rockkyy]

thanku verymuch...

wat i plan to do is to include the time value in to the token value pair using the time() function..
now after every 48 hrs i can compare all the elements time value with the current time using difftime function..

how to implement this check after 48 hrs..
now, this map container belongs to a parent process ok..
so i fork a child and put it on a sleep cycle of 48 hrs..then send a user defined signal which will be caught by the parent process. when this signal is caught it will call a function to do the checking of times...

while(1){
sleep(48*3600);
send signal now..............
}
Is this forking a child to do this a costly way in terms of cpu time..
or instead of this method is there any way of the child process accessing the parents data structures.. child is getting only the copy when i fork..

[Banfa]

Sorry you need someone who knows UNIX and that aint me.