Timer Functions

Timers may become inaccurate at higher resolutions due to overhead. The code to actually control the timers is fairly accurate, however, the macro may not be able to process data fast enough to keep up with the timers. This should not be an issue unless you are going into nanosecond timers.

Note:

The MicroMacro library also provides "simple", automatic timers. These will save you some time and learning. It is highly recommended to use automatic timers instead. Automatic timer functions are provided in the Library.

newTimer

newTimer(name)

Creates a new timer with the given name.

Example

newTimer("my_timer");

removeTimer

removeTimer(name)

Removes a timer with the given name, freeing it's used resources.

Example

removeTimer("my_timer");

startTimer

startTimer(name, time)

Starts or restarts a timer with the given name, with a given time value in miliseconds (1/1000th of a second).

Example

startTimer( "my_timer", 1000 );

isTriggered

bool isTriggered(name)

Returns if a timer has been triggered or not. Returns true if it has, false otherwise.

Remember to (re)start timers after they have been triggered.

Example

if( isTriggered("my_timer") ) then
  do_something();
  startTimer("my_timer", 1000);
end

getTime

table getTime()

Returns a high-resolution timestamp of the current time on the user's computer. This should be used in combination with deltaTime().

Example:

local now = getTime();

getTimerFrequency

table getTimerFrequency()

Returns a 64-byte integer (represented as a table) detailing how many processor cycles occur in a second. This varies across processors, and is generally not of much use to the average user.

local freq = getTimerFrequency()

deltaTime

number deltaTime(T2, T1)

Returns a floating-point integer that gives a precise amount of time, in milliseconds, that have elapsed between two timestamps. T2 should represent a 'newer' time than T1, such that T2 - T1 would be a positive value.

Example:

local startTime = getTime();
yrest(1000);
local endTime = getTime();

printf("%d milliseconds have elapsed.", deltaTime(endTime, startTime));
-- The value displayed should be roughly 1,000.