How to put a thread to sleep in c++11 ? | sleep_for | sleep_until

In this article we will discuss how to put a c++11 thread to sleep.

c++11 provides 2 functions for putting a thread to sleep i.e.

std::this_thread::sleep_for
std::this_thread::sleep_untill

Sleep for a Duration

C++11 provides a function std::this_thread::sleep_for to block the current thread for specified duration i.e.

template <class Rep, class Period>
void sleep_for (const chrono::duration<Rep,Period>& rel_time);

This function accepts a duration as an argument and make the calling thread to sleep for that particular duration.

This duration can be from nanoseconds to hours i.e.

std::chrono::nanoseconds
std::chrono::microseconds
std::chrono::milliseconds
std::chrono::seconds
std::chrono::minutes
std::chrono::hours

Lets see some examples,

Sleeping a Thread for MilliSeconds:

To sleep a thread for 200 Milliseconds call sleep_for with following argument i.e.

std::this_thread::sleep_for(std::chrono::milliseconds(200));

Sleeping a Thread for Minutes:

To sleep a thread for 1 Minute call sleep_for with following argument i.e.

std::this_thread::sleep_for(std::chrono::minutes(1));

Checkout complete example as follows,

#include <iostream>
#include <thread>
#include <chrono>

void threadFunc()
{
	int i = 0;
	while (i < 10)
	{
		// Print Thread ID and Counter i
		std::cout<<std::this_thread::get_id()<<" :: "<<i++<<std::endl;

		// Sleep this thread for 200 MilliSeconds
		std::this_thread::sleep_for(std::chrono::milliseconds(200));
	}
}

int main()
{
	std::thread th(&threadFunc);
	th.join();
	return 0;
}

Output:

140484807997184 :: 0
140484807997184 :: 1
140484807997184 :: 2
140484807997184 :: 3
140484807997184 :: 4
140484807997184 :: 5
140484807997184 :: 6
140484807997184 :: 7
140484807997184 :: 8
140484807997184 :: 9

Sleep Until a TimePoint

Many times we want the thread to sleep untill a time point in future. That can be acieved using sleep_untill() i.e.

template< class Clock, class Duration >
void sleep_until( const std::chrono::time_point<Clock,Duration>& sleepTime );

It accepts a time point as an argument and blocks the current thread till this time point is achieved.

Checkout the complete example, here we will put a thread to sleep until a time point in future i.e.

#include <iostream>
#include <thread>
#include <chrono>

// Print Current Time
void print_time_point(std::chrono::system_clock::time_point timePoint)
{
	std::time_t timeStamp = std::chrono::system_clock::to_time_t(timePoint);
	std::cout << std::ctime(&timeStamp) << std::endl;

}

void threadFunc()
{

	std::cout<<"Current Time :: ";
	// Print Current Time
	print_time_point(std::chrono::system_clock::now());

	// create a time point pointing to 10 second in future
	std::chrono::system_clock::time_point timePoint =
			std::chrono::system_clock::now() + std::chrono::seconds(10);

	std::cout << "Going to Sleep Until :: "; print_time_point(timePoint);


	// Sleep Till specified time point
	// Accepts std::chrono::system_clock::time_point as argument
	std::this_thread::sleep_until(timePoint);

	std::cout<<"Current Time :: ";
	// Print Current Time
	print_time_point(std::chrono::system_clock::now());
}

int main()
{
	std::thread th(&threadFunc);
	th.join();
	return 0;
}

Output:

Current Time :: Sat Feb 25 16:44:40 2017
Going to Sleep Until :: Sat Feb 25 16:44:50 2017
Current Time :: Sat Feb 25 16:44:50 2017

 

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