Can I pass a timeval as argument to sleep?

Question

Can I pass a timeval struct as the argument for a sleep function? I want to do this since the timeval struct can get very precise, since you can control the microseconds and I would like to sleep for a certain amount of microseconds. Can I do this?

If your question really is "can I pass a timeval as argument to sleep", then the answer is "no, you can't". If your question is "how to delay execution with microsecond resolution in C", then the answer is "use `nanosleep`". Please do not ask XY questions. — KamilCuk, Apr 21 '20 at 21:57
Does this answer your question? [Is there an alternative sleep function in C to milliseconds?](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1157209/is-there-an-alternative-sleep-function-in-c-to-milliseconds) — KamilCuk, Apr 21 '20 at 21:59
Most POSIX sleep functions are always noisy, so if you need a very precise amount of delay you may need a low-level OS function. — tadman, Apr 21 '20 at 22:02
Even if you do tell it how long to sleep, all you're really telling it is at least how long to sleep until it is permitted to wake. The OS/Scheduler is not required to wake it the moment the time has elapsed. — Christian Gibbons, Apr 21 '20 at 22:10

score 1 · Accepted Answer · edited Apr 26 '20 at 04:33

You could do something like:

struct timeval {long tv_sec; long tv_usec;};

struct timezone {int tz_minuteswest; int tz_dsttime; };    

   struct timeval tp;
   struct timezone tzp;
   int i;

   i = gettimeofday(&tp,&tzp);

And using that you can implement a delay function. Please see this example.

However if you want a precise delay you could use functions that enable you to get more precise delay such as nanosleep()

struct timespec tim, tim2;
tim.tv_sec = 1;
tim.tv_nsec = 1000000000L; //1,000,000,000 nanoseconds = 1 second

nanosleep(&tim , &tim2);
/*code after 1 second sleep*/

Can I pass a timeval as argument to sleep?

1 Answers1