Is there an alternative for sleep() in C?

Question

In traditional embedded programming, we will give a delay function like so:

for(i=0;i<255;i++)
   for(j=0;j<255;j++);

In the micropro

Answer 1

Alternatives depend in what you are trying to do and what OS you are on.

If you just want to waste time, then these might help:

On most unix-type systems you'll find a 'usleep' function, which is more or less like sleep with greater resolution. Be careful with that one because it usually can not sleep for just one microsecond.

On some unix-type systems, the select system call can be used with all file descriptor sets zero in order to get a fairly accurate sub-second wait.

On windows systems, you have Sleep, which is pretty much the same, but taking a number of milliseconds.

In a multi-tasking operating system, a sleep function can sometimes be given 0 as a parameter. This generally causes the function to give up it's timeslice, but be re-scheduled immediately if no other task is ready to run.