Delay command in Windows 7

Question

In the Linux prompt, I can run sleep 5 && echo hello & to delay a command to get executed after 5 seconds but how can I do this in Windows 7s' command prompt?

To explain further what I'm trying to do: In the end I need to execute a python script, such as the one below but in Windows 7. The python script needs to finish and exit. Then after a while I want the Windows machine to execute the command.

import subprocess
command = 'sleep 5 && echo hello'
p = subprocess.Popen(command, shell=True)

This is a very nice trick / hack at http://stackoverflow.com/a/735294/1662973 — Anthony Horne, May 06 '14 at 08:14

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered May 06 '14 at 08:16

2

There is no direct solution for delay on windows prompt. One solution i've used was as follow:

Create wait.bat file

@ping 127.0.0.1 -n %1% -w 1000 > nul

and while calling command from python use it like:

import subprocess
command = 'wait.bat 5 & echo hello'
p = subprocess.Popen(command, shell=True)

answered May 06 '14 at 08:16

Ravi Dhoriya ツ

4,435
8
37
48

Thank you, this is perfect for what I needed to do! – fredrik May 06 '14 at 08:31
It should read `%1` rather than `%1%` (it should refer to the 1st argument, shouldn't it?)... – aschipfl Jan 26 '17 at 14:20

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered May 06 '14 at 08:15

0

On Windows, you get the sleep command (e.g.: sleep 3 for 3 seconds pause). However, this command may not be installed.

An alternative is (on Windows):

ping -n 3 127.0.0.1 >nul

answered May 06 '14 at 08:15

G. Ghez

3,429
2
21
18

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered May 06 '14 at 08:17

To do this from the Windows cmd shell you can just ping an invalid ip address wit ha no of ms e.g.

ping 1.1.1.1 -n 1 -w 1000 > nul

to wait one second.

Or to do this in Python you can import sleep from the Time library e.g.

from time import sleep
sleep(1)

You just put the no of seconds as the arguement.

Delay command in Windows 7

3 Answers3