C++ Boost ASIO simple periodic timer?

I want a very simple periodic timer to call my code every 50ms. I could make a thread that sleeps for 50ms all the time (but that's a pain)... I could start looking into Linux API's for making timers (but it's not portable)...

I'd like to use boost.. I'm just not sure it's possible. Does boost provide this functionality?

5 Answers

A very simple, but fully functional example:

#include <iostream> #include <boost/asio.hpp> boost::asio::io_service io_service; boost::posix_time::seconds interval(1); // 1 second boost::asio::deadline_timer timer(io_service, interval); void tick(const boost::system::error_code& /*e*/) { std::cout << "tick" << std::endl; // Reschedule the timer for 1 second in the future: timer.expires_at(timer.expires_at() + interval); // Posts the timer event timer.async_wait(tick); } int main(void) { // Schedule the timer for the first time: timer.async_wait(tick); // Enter IO loop. The timer will fire for the first time 1 second from now: io_service.run(); return 0; } 

Notice that it is very important to call expires_at() to set a new expiration time, otherwise the timer will fire immediately because it's current due time already expired.

The second example on Boosts Asio tutorials explains it.
You can find it here.

After that, check the 3rd example to see how you can call it again with a periodic time intervall

To further expand on this simple example. It will block the execution as was said in the comments, so if you want more io_services running, you should run them in a thread like so...

boost::asio::io_service io_service; boost::asio::io_service service2; timer.async_wait(tick); boost::thread_group threads; threads.create_thread(boost::bind(&boost::asio::io_service::run, &io_service)); service2.run(); threads.join_all(); 

As I had some issues with prior answers, here is my example:

#include <boost/asio.hpp> #include <boost/bind.hpp> #include <boost/date_time/posix_time/posix_time.hpp> #include <iostream> void print(const boost::system::error_code&, boost::asio::deadline_timer* t,int* count) { if (*count < 5) { std::cout << *count << std::endl; ++(*count); t->expires_from_now(boost::posix_time::seconds(1)); t->async_wait(boost::bind(print, boost::asio::placeholders::error, t, count)); } } int main() { boost::asio::io_service io; int count = 0; boost::asio::deadline_timer t(io, boost::posix_time::seconds(1)); t.async_wait(boost::bind(print, boost::asio::placeholders::error, &t, &count)); io.run(); std::cout << "Final count is " << count << std::endl; return 0; } 

it did what it supposed to do: counting to five. May it help someone.

A Boost Asio add-on class that encapsulates this functionality (call a specfied function every N milliseconds):

The repo includes a demo source file and makefile.