uClinux Function - Setting Interval Timers

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8.13 setitimer: Setting Interval Timers

The setitimer system call is a generalization of the alarm call. It schedules the delivery of a signal at some point in the future after a fixed amount of time has elapsed.

A program can set three different types of timers with setitimer:

• If the timer code is ITIMER_REAL, the process is sent a SIGALRM signal after the specified wall-clock time has elapsed.

• If the timer code is ITIMER_VIRTUAL, the process is sent a SIGVTALRM signal after the process has executed for the specified time. Time in which the process is not executing (that is, when the kernel or another process is running) is not counted.

• If the timer code is ITIMER_PROF, the process is sent a SIGPROF signal when the specified time has elapsed either during the process's own execution or the execution of a system call on behalf of the process.

The first argument to setitimer is the timer code, specifying which timer to set. The second argument is a pointer to a struct itimerval object specifying the new settings for that timer. The third argument, if not null, is a pointer to another struct itimerval object that receives the old timer settings.

A struct itimerval variable has two fields:

• it_value is a struct timeval field that contains the time until the timer next expires and a signal is sent. If this is 0, the timer is disabled.

• it_interval is another struct timeval field containing the value to which the timer will be reset after it expires. If this is 0, the timer will be disabled after it expires. If this is nonzero, the timer is set to expire repeatedly after this interval.

The struct timeval type is described in Section 8.7, "gettimeofday: Wall-Clock Time."

The program in Listing 8.11 illustrates the use of setitimer to track the execution time of a program. A timer is configured to expire every 250 milliseconds and send a SIGVTALRM signal.

Listing 8.11 (itemer.c) Timer Example

#include 

#include 

#include 

#include 



void timer_handler (int signum)

{

static int count = 0;

printf ("timer expired %d times\n", ++count);

}



int main ()

{

struct sigaction sa;

struct itimerval timer;



/* Install timer_handler as the signal handler for SIGVTALRM. */

memset (&sa, 0, sizeof (sa));

sa.sa_handler = &timer_handler;

sigaction (SIGVTALRM, &sa, NULL);



/* Configure the timer to expire after 250 msec... */

timer.it_value.tv_sec = 0;

timer.it_value.tv_usec = 250000;

/* ... and every 250 msec after that. */

timer.it_interval.tv_sec = 0;

timer.it_interval.tv_usec = 250000;

/* Start a virtual timer. It counts down whenever this process is

  executing. */

setitimer (ITIMER_VIRTUAL, &timer, NULL);



/* Do busy work. */

while (1);

}