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phoenix_title Timer

The Timer class allows you to execute code at specified intervals.

Its precision is platform-dependent, but in general will not be better than 1ms nor worse than 1s .

There are three different ways to use this class:

  • You may derive a new class from Timer and override the Timer.Notify member to perform the required action.
  • You may redirect the notifications to any EvtHandler derived object by using the non-default constructor or Timer.SetOwner . Then use the EVT_TIMER macro to connect it to the event handler which will receive TimerEvent notifications.
  • You may use a derived class and the EVT_TIMER macro to connect it to an event handler defined in the derived class. If the default constructor is used, the timer object will be its own owner object, since it is derived from EvtHandler.

In any case, you must start the timer with Timer.Start after constructing it before it actually starts sending notifications. It can be stopped later with Timer.Stop .

Note

A timer can only be used from the main thread.

See also

StopWatch


class_hierarchy Inheritance Diagram

Inheritance diagram for class Timer

Inheritance diagram of Timer


method_summary Methods Summary

__init__ Default constructor.
GetId Returns the ID of the events generated by this timer.
GetInterval Returns the current interval for the timer (in milliseconds).
GetOwner Returns the current owner of the timer.
IsOneShot Returns True if the timer is one shot, i.e.
IsRunning Returns True if the timer is running, False if it is stopped.
Notify This member should be overridden by the user if the default constructor was used and SetOwner wasn’t called.
SetOwner Associates the timer with the given owner object.
Start (Re)starts the timer.
Stop Stops the timer.

property_summary Properties Summary

Id See GetId
Interval See GetInterval
Owner See GetOwner and SetOwner

api Class API



class Timer(EvtHandler)

The Timer class allows you to execute code at specified intervals.

Possible constructors:

Timer()

Timer(owner, id=-1)

Methods



__init__(self, *args, **kw)

overload Overloaded Implementations:



__init__ (self)

Default constructor.

If you use it to construct the object and don’t call SetOwner later, you must override Notify method to process the notifications.



__init__ (self, owner, id=-1)

Creates a timer and associates it with owner.

Please see SetOwner for the description of parameters.

Parameters:





GetId(self)

Returns the ID of the events generated by this timer.

Return type:int


GetInterval(self)

Returns the current interval for the timer (in milliseconds).

Return type:int


GetOwner(self)

Returns the current owner of the timer.

If not None this is the event handler which will receive the timer events (see TimerEvent) when the timer is running.

Return type: EvtHandler


IsOneShot(self)

Returns True if the timer is one shot, i.e.

if it will stop after firing the first notification automatically.

Return type:bool


IsRunning(self)

Returns True if the timer is running, False if it is stopped.

Return type:bool


Notify(self)

This member should be overridden by the user if the default constructor was used and SetOwner wasn’t called.

Perform whatever action which is to be taken periodically here.

Notice that throwing exceptions from this method is currently not supported, use event-based timer handling approach if an exception can be thrown while handling timer notifications.



SetOwner(self, owner, id=-1)

Associates the timer with the given owner object.

When the timer is running, the owner will receive timer events (see TimerEvent) with id equal to id specified here.

Parameters:


Start(self, milliseconds=-1, oneShot=False)

(Re)starts the timer.

If milliseconds parameter is -1 (value by default), the previous value is used. Returns False if the timer could not be started, True otherwise (in MS Windows timers are a limited resource).

If oneShot is False (the default), the Notify function will be called repeatedly until the timer is stopped. If True, it will be called only once and the timer will stop automatically.

To make your code more readable you may also use the following symbolic constants:

  • TIMER_CONTINUOUS: Start a normal, continuously running, timer
  • TIMER_ONE_SHOT: Start a one shot timer If the timer was already running, it will be stopped by this method before restarting it.
Parameters:
  • milliseconds (int) –
  • oneShot (bool) –
Return type:

bool



Stop(self)

Stops the timer.


Properties



Id

See GetId



Interval

See GetInterval



Owner

See GetOwner and SetOwner