How to use timer in C?

c timer countdowntimer
user2332426 picture user2332426 · Jun 18, 2013 · Viewed 167.9k times · Source

What is the method to use a timer in C? I need to wait until 500 ms for a job. Please mention any good way to do this job. I used sleep(3); But this method does not do any work in that time duration. I have something that will try until that time to get any input.

Answer

David Guyon picture David Guyon · Jun 24, 2014

Here's a solution I used (it needs #include <time.h>): 

int msec = 0, trigger = 10; /* 10ms */
clock_t before = clock();

do {
  /*
   * Do something to busy the CPU just here while you drink a coffee
   * Be sure this code will not take more than `trigger` ms
   */

  clock_t difference = clock() - before;
  msec = difference * 1000 / CLOCKS_PER_SEC;
  iterations++;
} while ( msec < trigger );

printf("Time taken %d seconds %d milliseconds (%d iterations)\n",
  msec/1000, msec%1000, iterations);

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