Easiest way to make lua script wait/pause/sleep/block for a few seconds?

Question

I cant figure out how to get lua to do any common timing tricks, such as

• sleep - stop all action on thread

• pause/wait - don\'t go on to the

Answer 1

require 'alien'

if alien.platform == "windows" then
  kernel32 = alien.load("kernel32.dll")
  sleep = kernel32.Sleep
  sleep:types{ret="void",abi="stdcall","uint"}
else
  -- untested !!!
  libc = alien.default
  local usleep = libc.usleep
  usleep:types('int', 'uint')
  sleep = function(ms)
    while ms > 1000 do
      usleep(1000)
      ms = ms - 1000
    end
    usleep(1000 * ms)
  end
end 

print('hello')
sleep(500)  -- sleep 500 ms
print('world')