C Timer or Thread Sleep

Question

I am running a windows service and using a loop and Thread Sleep to repeat a task   would it be better to use a timer method   If yes a code example would be great  I am currently using this code to repeat  int curMinute  int lastMinute   DateTime Now AddMinutes -1  Minute   while  condition       curMinute   DateTime Now Minute      if  lastMinute  lt  curMinute                do your once-per-minute code here          lastMinute   curMinute           Thread Sleep 50000           sleeps for 50 seconds     if  error condition that would break you out of this           break          leaves looping structure

User · Accepted Answer

class Program       static void Main string   args                Timer timer   new Timer new TimerCallback TimeCallBack  null 1000 50000           Console Read            timer Dispose               public static void TimeCallBack object o              curMinute   DateTime Now Minute        if  lastMinute  lt  curMinute              do your once-per-minute code here        lastMinute   curMinute            The code could resemble something like the one above

User · Answer

I would have to say a sleep is a better implementation with a state machine behind it  This would still keep you in control of the application at all times  but allowing any response needed at any specific time   This also will handle timer callbacks that are shorter than the  Processing execution time in the loop   For example     lt  -- language  c  -- gt  public enum State       Idle   0      Processing   1      Stop   100    public void Run         State state   State Idle       could be a member variable  so a service could stop this too      double intervalInSeconds   60      System DateTime nextExecution   System DateTime Now AddSeconds intervalInSeconds       while  state    State Stop                switch  state                        case State Idle                                        if  nextExecution  gt  System DateTime Now                                                state   State Processing                                                          break              case State Processing                                           do your once-per-minute code here                         if you want it to stop  just set it state to stop                         if this was a service  you could stop execution by setting state to stop  also                        only time it would not stop is if it was waiting for the process to finish  which you can handle in other ways                      state   State Idle                      nextExecution   System DateTime Now AddSeconds intervalInSeconds                                     break              default                  break                     System Threading Thread Sleep 1

User · Answer

It s important to understand that your code will sleep for 50 seconds between ending one loop  and starting the next     A timer will call your loop every 50 seconds  which isn t exactly the same   They re both valid  but a timer is probably what you re looking for here

User · Answer

Not quite answering the question  but rather than having   if  error condition that would break you out of this        break      leaves looping structure     You should probably have   while condition  amp  amp   error condition    Also  I d go with a Timer

User · Answer

I required a thread to fire once every minute  see question here  and I ve now used a DispatchTimer based on the answers I received   The answers provide some references which you might find useful

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I have used both timers and Thread Sleep x   or either  depending on the situation   If I have a short piece of code that needs to run repeadedly  I probably use a timer   If I have a piece of code that might take longer to run than the delay timer  such as retrieving files from a remote server via FTP  where I don t control or know the network delay or file sizes   count   I will wait for a fixed period of time between cycles   Both are valid  but as pointed out earlier they do different things  The timer runs your code every x milliseconds  even if the previous instance hasn t finished  The Thread Sleep x  waits for a period of time after completing each iteration  so the total delay per loop will always be longer  perhaps not by much  than the sleep period

User · Answer

Beware that calling Sleep   will freeze the service  so if the service is requested to stop  it won t react for the duration of the Sleep   call

User · Answer

You can use either one  But I think Sleep   is easy  clear and shorter to implement

User · Answer

I agree as well  using a timer is the best option  I have tried a solution similar to yours in the past and started having issues where the loop would misfire  and I would have to wait for another Thread Sleep   before it would fire again  Also  it did cause all sorts of issues with stopping the service  I would get constant errors about how it wasn t responding and had to be closed    Prashanth s code should be exactly what you need

User · Answer

Yes  using a Timer will free up a Thread that is currently spending most of its time sleeping   A Timer will also more accurately fire every minute so you probably won t need to keep track of lastMinute anymore

User · Answer

A timer is a better idea  IMO  That way  if your service is asked to stop  it can respond to that very quickly  and just not call the timer tick handler again    if you re sleeping  the service manager will either have to wait 50 seconds or kill your thread  neither of which is terribly nice

[c#] C# Timer or Thread.Sleep

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