MI-L sleep or wait function in mapbasic

[Mark Jackson]

I want my MapBasic to sleep or wait for a couple of seconds to allow 
another Windows program to do something. I've tried a MapInfo Knowledge 
Base suggestion, but it hogs the processor and slows down the other 
program. That means I have to allow a very long wait so the other program 
can finish its work. I've invented an alternative using the Windows API 
call Sleep, which doesn't hog the processor. I was wondering whether anyone 
knew whether its OK to call Sleep, before I send the MBX out to my customers...

The MapInfo Knowledge Base suggestion is this

Declare Sub Wait(byVal iSeconds as Integer)

Sub Wait(byVal iSeconds as Integer)
  Dim iEnd as Integer
  iEnd = Timer() + iSeconds
  Do while Timer() < iEnd
    ' whatever
  Loop
End Sub
But the trouble is that the Do-While loop hogs the processor. My 
alternative is below. The Sleep call takes the time to sleep in 
milliseconds. I'm mainly a Visual Basic programmer, and my VB bible for the 
API says Sleep is fine to use with VB. It seems to work with MapBasic too.

Declare Sleep lib "kernel32" (byval Milliseconds as Integer)
Declare Sub Wait(byVal iSeconds as Integer)
Sub Wait(byVal iSeconds as Integer)
   ' Use the Sleep API call to put this thread to sleep without hogging 
the processor
   call Sleep(iSeconds/1000)
End Sub

Thanks in advance

Mark

____________________________________________________________
Mark Jackson
Cambridge Environmental Research Consultants Ltd
3 King's Parade, Cambridge, CB2 1SJ

tel: 01223 357773
fax: 01223 357492
web: www.cerc.co.uk
email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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