Timer

An easy to use timer for Linux meant to be similar to timers available in embedded systems.

Usage

Create as many timers as you like:

Timer timer(1000, true, TimerExpiredCallback, NULL);

• The first argument is the duration or interval for the timer in milliseconds.
• The second argument indicates if the timer is periodic or a one-shot. If true, the timer will be periodic. If false, it will be a one-shot.
• The third argument is a pointer to a callback function that will get called when the timer expires.
• The last argument is a pointer. This will be passed to the callback function. If it is NULL, a pointer to the timer itself will be passed to the callback function. You can also pass a pointer to something that makes sense for your application.

You can also create a timer and configure it like this:

Timer timer;
timer.setInterval(1000);
timer.setPeriodic(true);
timer.setCallback(MyCallback);

Then start the timer:

timer.start();

You need to create a callback function that will get called when the timer expires. Here is an example prototype:

void TimerExpiredCallback(void * pData);

Other Methods

stop - Stops the timer from running and resets the internal count
pause - Stops the timer from running but does not reset the count
reset - Resets the count
isRunning - Returns true if the timer is running
setInterval - Sets the timer period in milliseconds
setPeriodic - true=periodic, false=one-shot
setCallback - Sets the callback function
setData - Sets the data sent when the callback is called

Background

Under the hood, an interval timer is used to provide the underlying timing functionality. Each timer created is a soft timer that gets exercised in the callback function for the interval timer. The period of the interval timer is 1 millisecond.