Recently I was trying to make a calendar application that will display the current year-month-date to the user. The problem is, if the user is gonna keep my application running even for the next day, how do I get notified ?? How shall I change the date displayed ? I don't wanna poll the current date to update it. Is this possible in c#.
Note: I tried out the SystemEvent.TimeChanged event, but it works only if the user manually changes the time / date from the control panel.
#OddThinking's answer will work (you could set a timer for the interval instead of sleeping). Another way would be to set a timer with a 1 minute interval and simply check if the system date has changed. Since you are only executing some lightweight code once a minute, I doubt the overhead would be noticable.
public void Main()
{
var T = new System.Timers.Timer();
T.Elapsed += CallBackFunction;
var D = (DateTime.Today.AddDays(1).Date - DateTime.Now);
T.Interval = D.TotalMilliseconds;
T.Start();
}
private void CallBackFunction(object sender, System.Timers.ElapsedEventArgs e)
{
(sender as System.Timers.Timer).Interval = (DateTime.Today.AddDays(1).Date - DateTime.Now).TotalMilliseconds;
}
Can you simply work out the number of seconds until midnight, and then sleep for that long?
Try looking into monitoring WMI events, you should be able to create a Wql event query that monitors the day of week change (i.e. ManagementEventWatcher etc) and then setup an event handler that fires when the event arrives.
using System;
using System.Management;
class Program
{
public static void Main()
{
WqlEventQuery q = new WqlEventQuery();
q.EventClassName = "__InstanceModificationEvent ";
q.Condition = #"TargetInstance ISA 'Win32_LocalTime' AND TargetInstance.Hour = 22 AND TargetInstance.Minute = 7 AND TargetInstance.Second = 59";
Console.WriteLine(q.QueryString);
using (ManagementEventWatcher w = new ManagementEventWatcher(q))
{
w.EventArrived += new EventArrivedEventHandler(TimeEventArrived);
w.Start();
Console.ReadLine(); // Block this thread for test purposes only....
w.Stop();
}
}
static void TimeEventArrived(object sender, EventArrivedEventArgs e)
{
Console.WriteLine("This is your wake-up call");
Console.WriteLine("{0}", new
DateTime((long)(ulong)e.NewEvent.Properties["TIME_CREATED"].Value));
}
}
How about a thread that checks for change in date. The thread can have some events that the controls that need this information can subscribe to.
Related
I'm learning how to webscrape in WPF. I check the site every 20sec, update my ObservableCollection (myClients) according to search results and display it in Listview (myList). I have 2 Buttons, one to start search and one to stop it.
I didn't know how to implement button autoclick every X sec (which would solve all my problems, am i right?) so i had to use Task.Delay(20000). Program works, it doesn't freeze right at the start like if i had used Thread.Sleep(), but if i press the Stop button and then Start, everything freezes.
I will upload only portion of the code that seems to be the problem. Note that the whole program at the moment is mostly reverse-engineered from several different programs as i am still a beginner.
private async void Button_Click(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e) //Start button
{
string car;
string price;
string link;
wantToAbort = false;
while (!wantToAbort)
{
// ----Simulate GET request----
//-----End GET----
myList.ItemsSource = myClients;
string searchCar = txtBlock.Text + " " + txtBlock2.Text;
var articleNodes = htmlDoc.DocumentNode.SelectNodes($"//*[#id='main_content']/div[1]/div[2]/ul[1]//*[text()[contains(., '{searchCar}')]]");
if (articleNodes != null && articleNodes.Any())
{
foreach (var articleNode in articleNodes)
{
car = WebUtility.HtmlDecode(articleNode.InnerText);
price = WebUtility.HtmlDecode(articleNode.ParentNode.ParentNode.SelectSingleNode("span").InnerText);
link = WebUtility.HtmlDecode(articleNode.ParentNode.ParentNode.Attributes["href"].Value);
var tempUser = new User(car, price, link);
if (!myClients.Any(x=>x.Link == tempUser.Link))
{
myClients.Insert(0, tempUser); //Inserts new item if Links are different
txtBlock3.Text = "Searching...";
}
}
await Task.Delay(20000); //This seems to be an issue
}
}
}
private void Button_Click_1(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e) //Stop button
{
wantToAbort = true;
txtBlock3.Text = "Ready to search again!";
}
Running a while loop on the UI thread may freeze the application as the UI thread cannot both process UI events and execute a loop or doing anything else simultaneously.
If you want to do something every x seconds you could use a timer as suggested by EJoshuaS. There is a DispatcherTimer class in WPF that fires a Tick event on the UI thread at an interval specified by the Interval property: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.windows.threading.dispatchertimer%28v=vs.110%29.aspx
You don't want to perform the GET request to the web server on the UI thread though so you should probably use a System.Timer.Timer: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.timers.timer(v=vs.110).aspx. This is a different type of timer that runs on a background thread.
Since you can only access UI controls such as TextBlocks and ListBoxes on the thread on which they were originally created - that is the UI thread - you will have to use the dispatcher to marshall any code that access these controls back to the UI thread in your Elapsed event handler:
private static void OnTimedEvent(Object source, ElapsedEventArgs e)
{
//call the web server here....
//dispatch any access to any UI control
txtBlock3.Dispatcher.Invoke(new Action(() = > { txtBlock3.Text = "Searching..."; }));
}
The golden rule to maintain a responsive application is to execute any long-running code on a background thread but you must only access UI controls back on the UI thread. Please refer to MSDN for more information about the threading model in WPF: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms741870(v=vs.110).aspx
DispatcherTimer may be a better solution in this case, like in the below example:
public partial class MainWindow : Window
{
private DispatcherTimer timer;
public MainWindow()
{
InitializeComponent();
timer = new DispatcherTimer();
timer.Interval = new TimeSpan(0, 0, 220);
timer.Tick += Timer_Tick;
timer.Start();
}
private void Timer_Tick(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
// Do something on your UI
Trace.TraceInformation("Timer expired");
}
}
Basically, this will raise an event at a given interval. Note that Windows Forms also has a timer, as does System.Threading, but you want to make sure you use DispatcherTimer rather than those. In particular, the one from System.Threading tends not to mix well with UIs because it runs its actions on the thread pool and WPF in particular is very fussy about how you update your UI from background threads.
The documentation I link to, as well as this answer, also give details on this.
Below is the code that I'm attempting to use as an elapsed timer on a desktop task timer that we're building. Right now when this runs it only counts to 60 seconds and then resets and doesn't ever add to the minutes.
//tick timer that checks to see how long the agent has been sitting in the misc timer status, reminds them after 5 mintues to ensure correct status is used
private void statusTime_Tick(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
counter++;
//The timespan will handle the push from the elapsed time in seconds to the label so we can update the user
//This shouldn't require a background worker since it's a fairly small app and nothing is resource heavy
var timespan = TimeSpan.FromSeconds(actualTimer.Elapsed.Seconds);
//convert the time in seconds to the format requested by the user
displaycounter.Text=("Elapsed Time in " + statusName+" "+ timespan.ToString(#"mm\:ss"));
//pull the thread into updating the UI
Application.DoEvents();
}
Quick Fix
I believe the problem is that you are using Seconds which is 0-59. You want to use TotalSeconds with your existing code:
var timespan = TimeSpan.FromSeconds(actualTimer.Elapsed.TotalSeconds);
Comments
However, this doesn't make a lot of sense as you could just use the TimeSpan object directly:
var timespan = actualTimer.Elapsed;
Also, I can't see all your application, but I would expect you do not need to call Application.DoEvents();. As the UI should update automatically when it has the chance... if it doesn't then you want to look at moving whatever code is blocking the UI to a different thread.
Recommendation
With all that said, I would recommend you don't use a timer to track elapsed time at all. Timers can lose accuracy over time. The best approach is to store the current system time when you start the process, then when you need to display the 'timer' do an on-demand calculation at that point.
A very simple example to help explain what I mean:
DateTime start;
void StartTimer()
{
start = DateTime.Now;
}
void UpdateDisplay()
{
var timespan = DateTime.Now.Subtract(start);
displaycounter.Text = "Elapsed Time in " + statusName + " " + timespan.ToString(#"mm\:ss"));
}
You could then use a timer to call your UpdateDisplay method at regular intervals:
void statusTime_Tick(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
UpdateDisplay();
}
I'm developing an Web API (which works quite well). What's missing?
Here is sample code of Get Action:
public IEnumerable<xxxx> Get()
{
IEnumerable<xxxx> yyyy = new List<xxxx>();
//get yyyy from database
timer = new Timer();
timer.AutoReset = true;
timer.Enabled = true;
timer.Interval = 5000; //miliseconds
timer.Elapsed += timer_Elapsed;
timer.Start();
return yyyy;
}
void timer_Elapsed(object sender, ElapsedEventArgs e)
{
//code to be executed when timer elapses...
}
So once a request is received, timer will be initialized and will fire Elapsed event at interval of 5 seconds. On next subsequent request this continues....
The expected behavior is such that:
Initialize Request -1
Initialize Timer -1
If another request from same client is received within 5 seconds, timer must not fire elapsed event.
If no request is received from same client within 5 seconds, timer should elapse and fire the event.
Also the timer has nothing to do with client(s).
Here is further business scenario related to this....
I'm developing a Web API that will be consumed by an electronic device when switched on. The device will keep sending it's ON status as long as the power is available. As soon as, user turns off the switch, the request to the server stops.
These status are updated into database whether device is ON or OFF. Now the trickier part was to identify when device turns off (complicated because the server does not know anything if the device stops sending any request). So for each devices there is a separate timer.
First of all, thank you #Patrick Hofman to guide me and think out of box...
I implemented a class having static property inside it.
public class DeviceContainer
{
public static List<DevTimer> timers=new List<DevTimer>();
}
public class DevTimer:Timer
{
public string Identifier {get; set;}
public bool IsInUse{get; set;}
}
and then in above code (in question), I made following changes:
public IEnumerable<xxxx> Get(string Id)
{
//Check if timer exists in
if(!DeviceContainer.timers.Any(s=>s.Identifier.Equals(Id)))
{
//Create new object of timer, assign identifier =Id,
//set interval and initialize it. add it to collection as
var timer = new DevTimer();
timer.AutoReset = true;
timer.Enabled = true;
timer.Interval = 5000; //miliseconds
timer.Elapsed += timer_Elapsed;
timer.IsInUse=true;
timer.Identifier=Id;
DeviceContainer.timers.Add(timer);
timer.Start();
}
else
{
//Code to stop the existing timer and start it again.
var _timer=DeviceContainer.timers.FirstOrDefault(s=>s.Identifier.Equals(Id))
as DevTimer;
_timer.Stop();
_timer.Start();
}
}
void timer_Elapsed(object sender, ElapsedEventArgs e)
{
//code that will turn off the device in DB
}
I'm not posting the entire code as that's not the purpose here.
I would use Microsoft's Reactive Framework for this.
Here's the code:
IEnumerable<xxxx> yyyy = new List<xxxx>();
Subject<Unit> clientRequestArrived = new Subject<Unit>();
IDisposable subscription =
clientRequestArrived
.Select(_ => Observable.Interval(TimeSpan.FromSeconds(5.0)))
.Switch()
.Subscribe(_ =>
{
//code to be executed when timer elapses...
//directly access `yyyy` here
});
All you need to do is call clientRequestArrived.OnNext(Unit.Default); every time that a user request comes in and that will be enough for this code to reset the timer.
If you want to stop the timer entirely, just call subscription.Dispose().
I have a service written in C# (.NET 1.1) and want it to perform some cleanup actions at midnight every night. I have to keep all code contained within the service, so what's the easiest way to accomplish this? Use of Thread.Sleep() and checking for the time rolling over?
I wouldn't use Thread.Sleep(). Either use a scheduled task (as others have mentioned), or set up a timer inside your service, which fires periodically (every 10 minutes for example) and check if the date changed since the last run:
private Timer _timer;
private DateTime _lastRun = DateTime.Now.AddDays(-1);
protected override void OnStart(string[] args)
{
_timer = new Timer(10 * 60 * 1000); // every 10 minutes
_timer.Elapsed += new System.Timers.ElapsedEventHandler(timer_Elapsed);
_timer.Start();
//...
}
private void timer_Elapsed(object sender, System.Timers.ElapsedEventArgs e)
{
// ignore the time, just compare the date
if (_lastRun.Date < DateTime.Now.Date)
{
// stop the timer while we are running the cleanup task
_timer.Stop();
//
// do cleanup stuff
//
_lastRun = DateTime.Now;
_timer.Start();
}
}
Check out Quartz.NET. You can use it within a Windows service. It allows you to run a job based on a configured schedule, and it even supports a simple "cron job" syntax. I've had a lot of success with it.
Here's a quick example of its usage:
// Instantiate the Quartz.NET scheduler
var schedulerFactory = new StdSchedulerFactory();
var scheduler = schedulerFactory.GetScheduler();
// Instantiate the JobDetail object passing in the type of your
// custom job class. Your class merely needs to implement a simple
// interface with a single method called "Execute".
var job = new JobDetail("job1", "group1", typeof(MyJobClass));
// Instantiate a trigger using the basic cron syntax.
// This tells it to run at 1AM every Monday - Friday.
var trigger = new CronTrigger(
"trigger1", "group1", "job1", "group1", "0 0 1 ? * MON-FRI");
// Add the job to the scheduler
scheduler.AddJob(job, true);
scheduler.ScheduleJob(trigger);
A daily task? Sounds like it should just be a scheduled task (control panel) - no need for a service here.
Does it have to be an actual service? Can you just use the built in scheduled tasks in the windows control panel.
The way I accomplish this is with a timer.
Run a server timer, have it check the Hour/Minute every 60 seconds.
If it's the right Hour/Minute, then run your process.
I actually have this abstracted out into a base class I call OnceADayRunner.
Let me clean up the code a bit and I'll post it here.
private void OnceADayRunnerTimer_Elapsed(object sender, ElapsedEventArgs e)
{
using (NDC.Push(GetType().Name))
{
try
{
log.DebugFormat("Checking if it's time to process at: {0}", e.SignalTime);
log.DebugFormat("IsTestMode: {0}", IsTestMode);
if ((e.SignalTime.Minute == MinuteToCheck && e.SignalTime.Hour == HourToCheck) || IsTestMode)
{
log.InfoFormat("Processing at: Hour = {0} - Minute = {1}", e.SignalTime.Hour, e.SignalTime.Minute);
OnceADayTimer.Enabled = false;
OnceADayMethod();
OnceADayTimer.Enabled = true;
IsTestMode = false;
}
else
{
log.DebugFormat("Not correct time at: Hour = {0} - Minute = {1}", e.SignalTime.Hour, e.SignalTime.Minute);
}
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
OnceADayTimer.Enabled = true;
log.Error(ex.ToString());
}
OnceADayTimer.Start();
}
}
The beef of the method is in the e.SignalTime.Minute/Hour check.
There are hooks in there for testing, etc. but this is what your elapsed timer could look like to make it all work.
As others already wrote, a timer is the best option in the scenario you described.
Depending on your exact requirements, checking the current time every minute may not be necessary.
If you do not need to perform the action exactly at midnight, but just within one hour after midnight, you can go for Martin's approach of only checking if the date has changed.
If the reason you want to perform your action at midnight is that you expect a low workload on your computer, better take care: The same assumption is often made by others, and suddenly you have 100 cleanup actions kicking off between 0:00 and 0:01 a.m.
In that case you should consider starting your cleanup at a different time. I usually do those things not at clock hour, but at half hours (1.30 a.m. being my personal preference)
I would suggest that you use a timer, but set it to check every 45 seconds, not minute. Otherwise you can run into situations where with heavy load, the check for a particular minute is missed, because between the time the timer triggers and the time your code runs and checks the current time, you might have missed the target minute.
You can also try the TaskSchedulerLibrary here http://visualstudiogallery.msdn.microsoft.com/a4a4f042-ffd3-42f2-a689-290ec13011f8
Implement the abstract class AbstractScheduledTask and call the ScheduleUtilityFactory.AddScheduleTaskToBatch static method
For those that found the above solutions not working, it's because you may have a this inside your class, which implies an extension method which, as the error message says, only makes sense on a non-generic static class. Your class isn't static. This doesn't seem to be something that makes sense as an extension method, since it's acting on the instance in question, so remove the this.
Try this:
public partial class Service : ServiceBase
{
private Timer timer;
public Service()
{
InitializeComponent();
}
protected override void OnStart(string[] args)
{
SetTimer();
}
private void SetTimer()
{
if (timer == null)
{
timer = new Timer();
timer.AutoReset = true;
timer.Interval = 60000 * Convert.ToDouble(ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["IntervalMinutes"]);
timer.Elapsed += new ElapsedEventHandler(timer_Elapsed);
timer.Start();
}
}
private void timer_Elapsed(object source, System.Timers.ElapsedEventArgs e)
{
//Do some thing logic here
}
protected override void OnStop()
{
// disposed all service objects
}
}
I'm looking for a way to add a timer (or stopwatch) that will start counting from 0 the moment the application is launched or a button is clicked, and keeps counting even after the user navigates through different pages, and then be able to display how much time has passed in the last page of the application. I've been messing around with the DispatcherTimer class, but to be honest, I'm having trouble understanding it. Any help, or even a nod in the right direction would be greatly appreciated!
If you want to use a time, you could add one on the page showing time!
Add this code to the constructor or somewhere else where you want to activate the timer. (The App.StartTime is the same as i wrote in the other answer)
DispatcherTimer timer = new DispatcherTimer();
timer.Tick +=
delegate(object s, EventArgs args)
{
TimeSpan time = (DateTime.Now - App.StartTime);
this.timenow.Text = string.Format("{0:D2}:{1:D2}:{2:D2}", time.Hours, time.Minutes, time.Seconds);
};
timer.Interval = new TimeSpan(0, 0, 1); // one second
timer.Start();
You just have to store the time when your app launch and then subtract the current time from the stored value.
in your App.cs store the time when application launch:
private static DateTime _starttime = DateTime.Now;
public static DateTime StartTime
{
get
{
return _starttime;
}
}
In your page or any where you need to get the current time the application has run, you just have to subtract then current time from the stored time. I have used it in a button click handler, see below:
private void timebutton_Click(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
{
TimeSpan time = (DateTime.Now - App.StartTime);
this.timenow.Text = string.Format("{0:D2}:{1:D2}:{2:D2}", time.Hours, time.Minutes, time.Seconds);
}