How to stop a timer within it's function

[aintaro]

Hello,

How can I stop a timer within a timer, here is an example to make it clear :

function test() 
local timer = 10 
local theTimer = setTimer(function() 
if (timer > 0) then 
 timer = timer - 1 
else 
--KILLTIMER HERE (already tried killTimer within the function, did not work) 
end 
end, 1000, 0) 
end 

Edited June 22, 2014 by Guest

[myonlake]

A timer within a timer? There's just one timer there, so just kill that. Make sure you pass theTimer as an argument to the timer function or your script won't be able to kill it.

[aintaro]

When you kill a timer within it's function it does not work.

[ADCX]

Variable theTimer is local to the function test, so you cannot use it inside the function within the timer. Pass it with a timer and then use it.

[cheez3d]

  
local Timer = nil; 
Timer = setTimer(function() 
    killTimer(Timer); 
end,1000,1); 
  

[aintaro]

  
local Timer = nil; 
Timer = setTimer(function() 
    killTimer(Timer); 
end,1000,1); 
  

thanks man, this is what I needed

[Citizen]

aintaro said:

Cheez3D said:

  
local Timer = nil; 
Timer = setTimer(function() 
    killTimer(Timer); 
end,1000,1); 
  

 

thanks man, this is what I needed

This is dirty !!! + it will produce bugs if you are on the server side (since the exact same global will be used by every players and possibly at the exact same time for 2 of them).

This is what you should do (as myonlake sugested):

function test() 
    local timer = 10 
    local theTimer = setTimer(function( selfTimer ) -- receive theTimer as selfTimer 
        if (timer > 0) then 
         timer = timer - 1 
        else 
            killTimer(selfTimer) 
        end 
    end, 1000, 0, theTimer) --give theTimer as function parameter 
end 

 

[cheez3d]

Citizen said:

This is dirty !!! + it will produce bugs if you are on the server side (since the exact same global will be used by every players and possibly at the exact same time for 2 of them).

This is what you should do (as myonlake sugested):

function test() 
    local timer = 10 
    local theTimer = setTimer(function( selfTimer ) -- receive theTimer as selfTimer 
        if (timer > 0) then 
         timer = timer - 1 
        else 
            killTimer(selfTimer) 
        end 
    end, 1000, 0, theTimer) --give theTimer as function parameter 
end 

 

That is not going to work unless you declare the Timer variable one line before.

  
local Timer = nil; 
Timer = setTimer(function(self) 
    outputChatBox(self); --> userdata; 
end,1000,1,Timer); 
  

 

  
local Timer = setTimer(function(self) 
    outputChatBox(self); --> nil; 
end,1000,1,Timer); 
  

 

[IIYAMA]

That is not going to work unless you declare the Timer variable one line before.

  
local Timer = nil; 
Timer = setTimer(function(self) 
    outputChatBox(self); --> userdata; 
end,1000,1,Timer); 
  

  
local Timer = setTimer(function(self) 
    outputChatBox(self); --> nil; 
end,1000,1,Timer); 
  

Yup/(correct),

The variable "Timer" received it's value after the setTimer function has returned it's result.

Which means the code inside of the function has been loaded before the returning and the Timer variable doesn't exist till then.

[Citizen]

Oh yeah ofc. I'm a bit slow these days :facepalm: ^^

[August_Alonso]

if(isTimer(timer)) then killTimer(timer) end 

[aintaro]

Code not working

Edited June 24, 2014 by Guest

[aintaro]

Cheez3D said:

Citizen said:

This is dirty !!! + it will produce bugs if you are on the server side (since the exact same global will be used by every players and possibly at the exact same time for 2 of them).

This is what you should do (as myonlake sugested):

function test() 
    local timer = 10 
    local theTimer = setTimer(function( selfTimer ) -- receive theTimer as selfTimer 
        if (timer > 0) then 
         timer = timer - 1 
        else 
            killTimer(selfTimer) 
        end 
    end, 1000, 0, theTimer) --give theTimer as function parameter 
end 

 

That is not going to work unless you declare the Timer variable one line before.

  
local Timer = nil; 
Timer = setTimer(function(self) 
    outputChatBox(self); --> userdata; 
end,1000,1,Timer); 
  

 

  
local Timer = setTimer(function(self) 
    outputChatBox(self); --> nil; 
end,1000,1,Timer); 
  

 

Dude, did you even test your code? it's not working at all. stop posting code that you didn't even bother to test.

Thanks

[ADCX]

This is actually impossible to do, because the passed variable will always be the one before the timer declaration. You should just put the function outside the timer.

[cheez3d]

This is actually impossible to do, because the passed variable will always be the one before the timer declaration. You should just put the function outside the timer.

It's not impossible. You can do it as I posted.

[IIYAMA]

Well it Works, only the outputChatBox doesn't work. Userdata's must be convert to a string before they can be showed in the chat.

[cheez3d]

They are actually auto-converted. Like in print().

[IIYAMA]

They are actually auto-converted. Like in print().

Not for me, I get warnings with userdata's which aren't converted with tostring,

[Citizen]

Dude, did you even test your code? it's not working at all. stop posting code that you didn't even bother to test.

Thanks

Hehehe, I don't test my code 90% of the time because my code works at first try 9 times out of 10.

So thanks for the advice but I'll just ignore it. Good luck with your problems in the future.

[ADCX]

Why not just do this, instead of all of these complications.

function MyFunction() 
    setTimer(function() 
        -- Your code here 
    end,1000,10) 
end 

[aintaro]

Why not just do this, instead of all of these complications.

function MyFunction() 
    setTimer(function() 
        -- Your code here 
    end,1000,10) 
end 

let's say you want a certain value to be higher than 0 to keep executing the the timer

something like this :

setTimer(function() 
      if (health > 0 and health < 50) then 
              --execute code here 
      else 
              -- kill timer here 
      end 
end, 1000, 0) 
  
Somethimes you need to kill a timer within it's function as you do not know how many times the timer has to tick 
  
  
 

[myonlake]

What are you using the script for even - if you're using it server-side and it's used individually for specific players, you should know that you'd potentially have up to 4096 simulatenous timers running at the same time each second. Can you explain what exactly are you doing that timer for? And could it be moved to client-side, as that would be efficient for the server performance. Besides you can just use getTickCount( ) client-side.

[ADCX]

local Timer = nil 
Timer = setTimer(function(myTimer) 
      if (health > 0 and health < 50) then 
              --execute code here 
      else 
              killTimer(myTimer) 
      end 
end, 1000, 0,Timer) 

Try this, but I'm not sure if it'll work, because it doesn't say if setTimer uses live variable, or just what that variable represented for that time.

[arezu]

Dude, did you even test your code? it's not working at all. stop posting code that you didn't even bother to test.

Thanks

Did you even test it? I tested it and it works.

Here's my test (ran server-side):

local timer = nil 
timer = 
setTimer(function() 
    outputDebugString("update!") 
    killTimer(timer) 
end, 1000, 0) 

Closures in lua uses reference to outside variables, and if the scope ends before closure is called, then the variable is saved until the closures have been "free'd" from memory.. I guess that is kinda how closures work in lua.

As a test, I made a script like this:

local timer = nil 
local count = 0 
timer = 
setTimer(function() 
    outputDebugString(tostring(count)) 
    count = 2 
end, 1000, 1) 
count = 1 
  
setTimer(function() 
    outputDebugString("second timer: "..tostring(count)) 
    count = 3 
end, 3000, 1) 

The output was:

1 
second timer: 2 

[aintaro]

Citizen said:

aintaro said:

Cheez3D said:

  
local Timer = nil; 
Timer = setTimer(function() 
    killTimer(Timer); 
end,1000,1); 
  

 

thanks man, this is what I needed

This is dirty !!! + it will produce bugs if you are on the server side (since the exact same global will be used by every players and possibly at the exact same time for 2 of them).

This is what you should do (as myonlake sugested):

function test() 
    local timer = 10 
    local theTimer = setTimer(function( selfTimer ) -- receive theTimer as selfTimer 
        if (timer > 0) then 
         timer = timer - 1 
        else 
            killTimer(selfTimer) 
        end 
    end, 1000, 0, theTimer) --give theTimer as function parameter 
end 

 

local Timer = nil; 
Timer = setTimer(function() 
    killTimer(Timer); 
end,1000,1); 

 

this is not dirty at all,

Whenever the function gets called, local Timer gets a new slot in the memory, so it's never the same timer, even if multiple players execute the function.

So please test code before you comment