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Improve the Latency of my cycle in C#(.Net) application

I have a generic question regarding obtaining a very high latency. I am coding for a target device which has Windows Embedded Pro 7. So i would assume that I can get real time performance (from what I have read). I am using "System.Timers" for setting a time cycle.Below is an example in
public void updateCycle50ms( )
{
Stopwatch t = Stopwatch.StartNew();
System.TimeSpan timer50ms = System.TimeSpan.FromMilliseconds(50);
while (1 == 1)
{
// Sending Message
CANSEND(ref msg); // This function sends Message over CAN network.
while (t.Elapsed < timer50ms)
{
// do nothing
}
}
}
What I try to do is send a message every 50 milliSecond, but at the the cycle takes from 29ms to 90ms (I can see it at receiving end). Can you guys tell me why I am not able to achieve my goal. Do I need to use another .Net class or there are special classes which can be used in Windows Embedded to get Real Time Performance (or closer to it).

Try to use System.Timers.Timer class:
private System.Timers.Timer timer;
public void updateCycle50ms( )
{
// Create a timer with a 50ms interval.
timer= new System.Timers.Timer(50);
// Hook up the Elapsed event for the timer.
timer.Elapsed += (s, e) =>
{
// Sending Message
CANSEND(ref msg);
};
// Have the timer fire repeated events (true is the default)
timer.AutoReset = true;
// Start the timer
timer.Enabled = true;
// If the timer is declared in a long-running method, use KeepAlive to prevent garbage collection
// from occurring before the method ends.
// GC.KeepAlive(timer)
}

How to reduce the processor consumption?

I have made a C# alarm clock and it's working fine. the problem is that when it runs it consumes 20% of the processor (on an i5 2410M processor) what should I do?
here is my code:
using System;
namespace assigment1
{
class Program
{
static void Main(string[] args)
{
DateTime uptime = new DateTime (2013,12,10,4,0,0);
Console.WriteLine("This alarm is set to go off at 4:00 am");
while (true)
{
if (DateTime.Now.Minute == uptime.Minute && DateTime.Now.Hour == uptime.Hour)
{
for (int j = 1000; j < 22767; j++)
{
Console.Beep(j, 500);
Console.Write("Wake up! it is {0}:{1} already! ", DateTime.Now.Hour, DateTime.Now.Minute);
}
}
}
}
}
}

This is because your while loop is running continuously without any break. Add a Thread.Sleep. This will add a pause in between checks and greatly increase your performance:
class Program
{
static void Main(string[] args)
{
DateTime uptime = new DateTime (2013,12,10,4,0,0);
Console.WriteLine("This alarm is set to go off at 4:00 am");
while (true)
{
if (DateTime.Now.Minute == uptime.Minute && DateTime.Now.Hour == uptime.Hour)
{
for (int j = 1000; j < 22767; j++)
{
Console.Beep(j, 500);
Console.Write("Wake up! it is {0}:{1} already! ", DateTime.Now.Hour, DateTime.Now.Minute);
}
}
Thread.Sleep(1500); // Sleep 1.5 seconds.
}
}
}

You need to calculate the time till till the alarm should beep and use the timer class. Just set the interval to the time remaining till alarm and stop the timer after that. Something like this should work
DateTime alarmTime = new DateTime(2013,12,10,4,0,0);
System.Windows.Forms.Timer alarmTimer = new System.Windows.Forms.Timer();
alarmTimer.Interval = (alarmTime - DateTime.Now).Milliseconds;
alarmTimer.Tick += alarmTimer_Tick;
alarmTimer.Start();
your event
void alarmTimer_Tick(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
alarmTimer.Stop();
Console.Write("Wake up! it is {0}:{1} already! ", DateTime.Now.Hour, DateTime.Now.Minute);
}

if you want an alarm clock why you don't use Timer Class

I don't know if you can do that, but you can change the thread priority of the executing thread via the Priority property. You may want to try the following:
Thread.CurrentThread.Priority = ThreadPriority.Lowest;
Also, I don't think you really want to cap it. If the machine is otherwise idle, you'd like it to get busy on with the task, right? ThreadPriority helps communicate this to the scheduler.

You are putting the check within a while loop, which means it will be utilising a large proportion of your processor time.
I would suggest having a look at this article (http://www.infolet.org/2012/11/create-digital-clock-on-c-sharp-program-code.html) which describes how to do this using the Timer Class.
UPDATE:
This SO answer is pretty nice and may be more suited if you're happy to use events;
https://stackoverflow.com/a/1493235/465404

I think you should definitely be using a Timer class for your alarm and just change the tick interval accordingly. This will easily allow you to manage recurrence of the alarm as well.
So you're interval will be the difference in time between when the alarm is set and when you want it to go off.
I have used multiple of these running concurrently in a Win Forms app with very small resource utilisation.

pausing program without interrupting timers c#

I am writing a program that has several "Worker" objects going off and doing tasks that take as set amount of time. I have created a worker class with an internal timer that is working fine. However, when doing the "work" i will at times need to wait several seconds for a screen refresh (each worker is scraping data from a remote screen and doing some automation).
For those pauses, i don't want to sleep the thread, because as i understand it that will also
pause the timers on the other worker objects (my application is a single thread because, frankly, I'm brand new to C# and i didn't want to overreach). Is there another waiting function that i can use that doesn't actually hang the whole thread?
Some additional info:
Right now this is a console app, but i will eventually be building a UI form to provide feedback to the user on how the workers are doing
My timers are implemented using System.Timers and are working quite nicely
I am brand new to C# programming, this is my first project, so please use small words ;)
Using MS VS Express 2012 for Desktop (so whatever version of C# / .NET that is!)
Code below (the actual work will be done using the "startWorking" method, but nothing is implemented - this is just my sold build with timers working. Also, the main is just being used for testing multiple timers right now)
using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;
using System.Threading.Tasks;
using System.Timers;
namespace Multi_Timers
{
//worker class that includes a timer
public class Worker
{
private Timer taskTimer;
private bool available = true;
private string workerName;
private string startWork;
private int workTime;
// properties
public bool isAvailable { get { return this.available; } }
public string name { get { return this.workerName; } }
// constructor
public Worker(string name)
{
this.workerName = name;
Console.WriteLine("{0} is initialized", name);
}
// start work timer
public void startWorking(int duration) {
if (this.available == true)
{
this.available = false;
this.taskTimer = new Timer();
this.taskTimer.Interval = duration;
this.taskTimer.Elapsed += new ElapsedEventHandler(doneWorking);
this.taskTimer.Enabled = true;
this.startWork = DateTime.Now.ToString();
this.workTime = duration / 1000;
}
else Console.WriteLine("Sorry, {0} was not available to work", this.workerName);
}
// Handler for timer
public void doneWorking(object sender, ElapsedEventArgs e)
{
Console.WriteLine("{0}: {1} / {2} min / {3}", this.workerName, this.startWork, this.workTime/60, e.SignalTime.ToLocalTime());
this.taskTimer.Enabled = false;
this.available = true;
}
}
//main program
class Program
{
static void Main(string[] args)
{
Random r = new Random();
// initialize worker(s)
Worker bob = new Worker("Bob");
Worker bill = new Worker("Bill");
Worker jim = new Worker("Jim");
// q to exit
while (true)
{
if (bob.isAvailable) {
bob.startWorking(r.Next(1 * 60, 150 * 60) * 1000);
}
if (bill.isAvailable)
{
bill.startWorking(r.Next(1 * 60, 150 * 60) * 1000);
}
if (jim.isAvailable)
{
jim.startWorking(r.Next(1 * 60, 150 * 60) * 1000);
}
}
}
}
}
Thank you for any help in advance! Reading examples from this community was definitely key in teaching myself a little bit of C# to get started with!

i don't want to sleep the thread, because as i understand it that will also pause the timers on the other worker objects
That is incorrect; it will not stop the timers.
my application is a single thread
No, actually, it's not. The timers will be creating and using other threads to implement their behavior. The Elapsed event handlers will be fired from a thread pool thread.
One major issue with your code is that your main method is doing a "busywait" on the three objects, constantly polling them asking if they're done. This is...expensive. It's basically like you're kids asking, "Are we there yet." a few hundred times a second. Wouldn't it be so much nicer if they just sat their waiting until you told them you were done! (That's quite possible, and a good possible option.)
One of the simpler solutions in this case would be to do the loop in the worker, not Main. Have the implementation of startWorking wrapped in a while loop, and have main just do a wait forever (i.e. Thread.Sleep(Timeout.Infinite);). More complex options would be having the workers provide a Task, event, or blocking wait (also called a "Join") method to indicate when they are finished.
The option you're considering, that of adding a Thread.Sleep of a little while in Main will help, but it's only telling your kids to ask you when you're there less often, rather than having them wait for you to tell them when you're there.

If you ever find yourself wanting to delay execution again in a different context you could consider an implementation like this:
private static void DelayExecution(Action action, TimeSpan delay)
{
TimeSpan start = DateTime.Now.TimeOfDay;
Thread t = new Thread(() =>
{
while (DateTime.Now.TimeOfDay < start.Add(delay))
{
//Block
}
action.Invoke();
});
t.Start();
}
private static void Main(string[] args)
{
DelayExecution(() => Console.WriteLine("Delayed Execution"), TimeSpan.FromSeconds(1));
Console.ReadLine();
}

How to add a timer to an app!

I have an app that I would like to update on an interval. I am looking for maybe some type of if statement or try - catch statement. I already have a foreach statement in the same class, but i dont think I can put in there? I would also like to set it up so that the user can change the refresh rate. Any help is appreciated. Thanks
Here is the method that I would like to put the timer in...
private void _UpdatePortStatus(string[] files)
{
foreach (string file in files)
{
PortStatus ps = new PortStatus();
ps.ReadXml(new StreamReader(file));
if (!_dicPortStatus.ContainsKey(ps.General[0].Group))
{
_dicPortStatus.Add(ps.General[0].Group, ps);
}
PortStatus psOrig = _dicPortStatus[ps.General[0].Group];
foreach (PortStatus.PortstatusRow psr in ps.Portstatus.Rows)
{
DataRow[] drs = psOrig.Portstatus.Select("PortNumber = '" + psr.PortNumber + "'");
if (drs.Length == 1)
{
DateTime curDt = DateTime.Parse(drs[0]["LastUpdateDateTimeUTC"].ToString());
DateTime newDt = psr.LastUpdateDateTimeUTC;
if (newDt > curDt)
{
drs[0]["LastUpdateDateTimeUTC"] = newDt;
}
}
else if (drs.Length == 0)
{
psOrig.Portstatus.ImportRow(psr);
}
else
{
throw new Exception("More than one of the same portnumber on PortStatus file: " + file);
}
}
}
}

Look at the System.Timer class. You basically set an interval (eg. 10000 milliseconds) and it will raise an event every time that interval time passes.
To allow the use to change the refresh rate, write a method that receives input from the user and use that to update the TimerInterval. Note that the TimerInterval is in miliseconds, so you may need to convert to that from whatever the user input.
So, from the example, the event will be raised every 10 seconds:
System.Timers.Timer aTimer = new System.Timers.Timer(10000); //10 seconds
// Hook up the Elapsed event for the timer.
aTimer.Elapsed += new ElapsedEventHandler(OnTimedEvent);
aTimer.Enabled = true; // Starts the Timer
// Specify what you want to happen when the Elapsed event is raised
private static void OnTimedEvent(object source, ElapsedEventArgs e)
{
//Perform update
_UpdatePortStatus(files);
}
UPDATE: In response to your posted code, it appears you simply want to call _UpdatePortStatus to update the port status at regular intervals (see the updated example above).
One important point you need to bear in mind though is that the Timer will run on a separate thread, and as such could raise the event again before it has finished running from the last time if it takes more than the interval time to run.

Use System.Timers.Timer, System.Threading.Timer or System.Windows.Forms.Timer ... depending on what exactly it is that you "would like to update on an interval."
See the following articles:
http://www.intellitechture.com/System-Windows-Forms-Timer-vs-System-Threading-Timer-vs-System-Timers-Timer/
http://www.yoda.arachsys.com/csharp/threads/timers.shtml

Your question is somewhat vague as there an many different methods of achieving what you want to do. However in the simplest terms you need to create a System.Threading.Timer that ticks on whatever frequency you define, for example:
private System.Threading.Timer myTimer;
private void StartTimer()
{
myTimer = new System.Threading.Timer(TimerTick, null, 0, 5000);
}
private void TimerTick(object state)
{
Console.WriteLine("Tick");
}
In this example the timer will 'tick' every 5 seconds and perform whatever functionality you code into the TimerTick method. If the user wants to change the frequency then you would destroy the current timer and initialise with the new frequency.
All this said, I must stress that this is the simplest of implementation and may not suit your needs.

.NET, event every minute (on the minute). Is a timer the best option?

I want to do stuff every minute on the minute (by the clock) in a windows forms app using c#. I'm just wondering whats the best way to go about it ?
I could use a timer and set its interval to 60000, but to get it to run on the minute, I would have to enable it on the minute precisely, not really viable.
I could use a timer and set its interval to 1000. Then within its tick event, I could check the clocks current minute against a variable that I set, if the minute has changed then run my code. This worries me because I am making my computer do a check every 1 second in order to carry out work every 1 minutes. Surely this is ugly ?
I'm using windows forms and .Net 2.0 so do not want to use the DispatchTimer that comes with .Net 3.5
This must be a fairly common problem. Have any of you a better way to do this?

Building on the answer from aquinas which can drift and which doesn't tick exactly on the minute just within one second of the minute:
static System.Timers.Timer t;
static void Main(string[] args)
{
t = new System.Timers.Timer();
t.AutoReset = false;
t.Elapsed += new System.Timers.ElapsedEventHandler(t_Elapsed);
t.Interval = GetInterval();
t.Start();
Console.ReadLine();
}
static double GetInterval()
{
DateTime now = DateTime.Now;
return ((60 - now.Second) * 1000 - now.Millisecond);
}
static void t_Elapsed(object sender, System.Timers.ElapsedEventArgs e)
{
Console.WriteLine(DateTime.Now.ToString("o"));
t.Interval = GetInterval();
t.Start();
}
On my box this code ticks consistently within .02s of each minute:
2010-01-15T16:42:00.0040001-05:00
2010-01-15T16:43:00.0014318-05:00
2010-01-15T16:44:00.0128643-05:00
2010-01-15T16:45:00.0132961-05:00

How about:
int startin = 60 - DateTime.Now.Second;
var t = new System.Threading.Timer(o => Console.WriteLine("Hello"),
null, startin * 1000, 60000);

Creating a Timer control that fires every 1 second (and usually does nothing but a simple check) will add negligible overhead to your application.
Simply compare the value of Environment.TickCount or DateTime.Now to the last stored time (the previous 'minute tick'), and you should have a reasonably precise solution. The resolution of these two time values is about 15ms, which should be sufficient for your purposes.
Do note however that the interval of the Timer control is not guaranteed to be that precise or even anywhere now, since it runs on the Windows message loop, which is tied in with the responsiveness of the UI. Never rely on it for even moderately precise timing - though it is good enough for firing repeating events where you can check the time using a more sensitive method such as one of the two given above.

You can nail this with reactive extensions which will take care of lots of timer related problems for you (clock changes, app hibernation etc). Use Nuget package Rx-Main and code like this:
Action work = () => Console.WriteLine(DateTime.Now.ToLongTimeString());
Scheduler.Default.Schedule(
// start in so many seconds
TimeSpan.FromSeconds(60 - DateTime.Now.Second),
// then run every minute
() => Scheduler.Default.SchedulePeriodic(TimeSpan.FromMinutes(1), work));
Console.WriteLine("Press return.");
Console.ReadLine();
Read here (search for "Introducing ISchedulerPeriodic") to see all the issues this is taking care of: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/rxteam/archive/2012/06/20/reactive-extensions-v2-0-release-candidate-available-now.aspx

I jsut wrote this class using the WPF DispatcherTimer but you can swap the dispatcher for any timer that supports changing when it's woken from sleep state.
The class is constructed with a fixed time step and supprts Start/Stop/Reset, Start/Stop/Start works like a resume operation. The timer is like a stopwatch in that regard.
A clock implementation would simply create the class with a interval of 1 second and listen to the event. Be wary though that this is a real-time clock, if the tick event takes longer than the interval to finish you'll notice that the clock will try and catch up to real-time this will cause a burst of tick events being raised.
public class FixedStepDispatcherTimer
{
/// <summary>
/// Occurs when the timer interval has elapsed.
/// </summary>
public event EventHandler Tick;
DispatcherTimer timer;
public bool IsRunning { get { return timer.IsEnabled; } }
long step, nextTick, n;
public TimeSpan Elapsed { get { return new TimeSpan(n * step); } }
public FixedStepDispatcherTimer(TimeSpan interval)
{
if (interval < TimeSpan.Zero)
{
throw new ArgumentOutOfRangeException("interval");
}
this.timer = new DispatcherTimer();
this.timer.Tick += new EventHandler(OnTimerTick);
this.step = interval.Ticks;
}
TimeSpan GetTimerInterval()
{
var interval = nextTick - DateTime.Now.Ticks;
if (interval > 0)
{
return new TimeSpan(interval);
}
return TimeSpan.Zero; // yield
}
void OnTimerTick(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
if (DateTime.Now.Ticks >= nextTick)
{
n++;
if (Tick != null)
{
Tick(this, EventArgs.Empty);
}
nextTick += step;
}
var interval = GetTimerInterval();
Trace.WriteLine(interval);
timer.Interval = interval;
}
public void Reset()
{
n = 0;
nextTick = 0;
}
public void Start()
{
var now = DateTime.Now.Ticks;
nextTick = now + (step - (nextTick % step));
timer.Interval = GetTimerInterval();
timer.Start();
}
public void Stop()
{
timer.Stop();
nextTick = DateTime.Now.Ticks % step;
}
}

Create a method or put this code where you want the timer to start:
int time = 60 - DateTime.Now.Second; // Gets seconds to next minute
refreshTimer.Interval = time * 1000;
refreshTimer.Start();
And then on your tick event set the interval to 60000:
private void refreshTimer_Tick(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
refreshTimer.Interval = 60000; // Sets interval to 60 seconds
// Insert Refresh logic
}

By making use of ReactiveExtensions you could use the following code if you were interested in doing something as simple as printing to the console.
using System;
using System.Reactive.Linq;
namespace ConsoleApplicationExample
{
class Program
{
static void Main()
{
Observable.Interval(TimeSpan.FromMinutes(1))
.Subscribe(_ =>
{
Console.WriteLine(DateTime.Now.ToString());
});
Console.WriteLine(DateTime.Now.ToString());
Console.ReadLine();
}
}
}

Running a bit of code to see if the minute has changed once per second should not require much CPU time, and should be acceptable.

What about Quartz.NET? I think its a good framework to do timed actions.

You could set up two timers. An initial short interval timer (perhaps to fire every second, but dependent on how presice the second timer must fire on the minute).
You would fire the short interval timer only until the desired start time of the main interval timer is reached. Once the initial time is reached, the second main interval timer can be activated, and the short interval timer can be deactivated.
void StartTimer()
{
shortIntervalTimer.Interval = 1000;
mainIntervalTimer.Interval = 60000;
shortIntervalTimer.Tick +=
new System.EventHandler(this.shortIntervalTimer_Tick);
mainIntervalTimer.Tick +=
new System.EventHandler(mainIntervalTimer_Tick);
shortIntervalTimer.Start();
}
private void shortIntervalTimer_Tick(object sender, System.EventArgs e)
{
if (DateTime.Now.Second == 0)
{
mainIntervalTimer.Start();
shortIntervalTimer.Stop();
}
}
private void mainIntervalTimer_Tick(object sender, System.EventArgs e)
{
// do what you need here //
}

Alternatively, you could sleep to pause execution until it times out which should be close to your desired time. This will only wake the computer when the sleep finishes so it'll save you CPU time and let the CPU power down between processing events.
This has the advantage of modifying the timeout so that it will not drift.
int timeout = 0;
while (true) {
timeout = (60 - DateTime.Now.Seconds) * 1000 - DateTime.Now.Millisecond;
Thread.Sleep(timeout);
// do your stuff here
}

Use a timer set to run every second (or millisecond, whatever your accuracy threshold is), and then code the method to run your functionality if and only if the current time is within that threshold past the "on the minute" point.

What I'm using for scheduled tasks is a System.Threading.Timer(System.Threading.TimerCallback, object, int, int) with the callback set to the code I want to execute based on the interval which is supplied in milliseconds for the period value.

What about a combination of aquinas' answer and 'polling': (apologies for the mixture of languages)
def waitForNearlyAMinute:
secsNow = DateTime.Now.Second;
waitFor = 55 - secsNow;
setupTimer(waitFor, pollForMinuteEdge)
def pollForMinuteEdge:
if (DateTime.Now.Second == 0):
print "Hello, World!";
waitForNearlyAMinute();
else:
setupTimer(0.5, pollForMinuteEdge)

I have a solution based on Environment.TickCount
static void Main(string[] args)
{
//constatnt total miliseconds to one minute
const Int32 minuteMilisecond = 60 * 1000;
//get actual datetime
DateTime actualDateTime = DateTime.UtcNow;
//compenzation to one minute
Int32 nexTimer = Environment.TickCount + ((59 - actualDateTime.Second) * 1000) + (999 - actualDateTime.Millisecond);
//random fuction to simulate different delays on thread
Random rnd = new Random();
//main loop
while (true)
{
if (Environment.TickCount > nexTimer)
{
nexTimer += minuteMilisecond;
//execute your code here every minute
Console.WriteLine($"actual DateTime: {DateTime.Now.ToString("yyyy.MM.dd HH:mm:ss:ffff")}");
}
//random sleep between 100 - 200 ms
Thread.Sleep(rnd.Next(100, 200));
}
}