Tell C++ console to wait

Question

What is the method to tell the console to wait for x seconds. Is there a built in method or must I make one.

Charles Salvia · Accepted Answer · 2009-11-28T19:44:11.983

7

It's platform specific. On Linux/UNIX, or other POSIX-compliant operating systems, you can use the sleep function, which takes a parameter in seconds. On Windows you can use Sleep, which takes a parameter in milliseconds.

edited Nov 28 '09 at 19:44

answered Nov 28 '09 at 19:42

Charles Salvia

52,325
13
128
140

1

I get the error, 'sleep': identifier not found – Mohit Deshpande Nov 28 '09 at 19:44
Maybe you should include: #include – Erkan Haspulat Nov 28 '09 at 19:46
3

See the links to the man pages for each sleep function. You probably need to include the appropriate headers. On Linux, that would be `unistd.h`, on Windows you want `Windows.h` I think. Also, please specify the OS you are using in the future, as it makes it easier for people to answer your questions succinctly. – Charles Salvia Nov 28 '09 at 19:47

score 2 · Answer 2 · answered Nov 28 '09 at 19:42

2

You are looking for the sleep method.

sleep(5);

answered Nov 28 '09 at 19:42

Erkan Haspulat

12,032
6
39
45

1

As noted above, the sleep function is not a standard part of C++. – ChrisInEdmonton Nov 28 '09 at 19:49

score 1 · Answer 3 · answered Nov 28 '09 at 20:03

If you want it to be portable, you have to use preprocessing to determine what operating system it is and include the header as appropriate.

It would be good to make a function for calling sleep, like:

void portableSleep(int sec) {
#   ifdef POSIX
        sleep(sec);
#   endif
#   ifdef WINDOWS
        Sleep(sec * 1000);
#   endif
}

Autoconf can help you with this.

Tell C++ console to wait

3 Answers3