From: Eric Hodel <drbrain@...7.net>
Date: 2004-06-11T12:08:41-07:00
Subject: Re: The dangers of sleeping ...

--qhD8kUEc5MK9MdKG
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Disposition: inline
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

Dale Martenson (dmartenson@multitech.com) wrote:

> I guess when I think of sleeping. I don't see the relationship between
> sleeping for a particular length of time and what the clock says. This may
> be since I work with a lot embedded systems where tick counts are used to
> for timing events. Date and time information may or may not be available.
>=20
> I just thought it was odd that it wasn't accounted for and that its behav=
ior
> varied depending on if it was in a thread or not.

If you look at sleep(3) you'll find:

DESCRIPTION
     The sleep() function suspends execution of the calling process until
     either seconds seconds have elapsed or a signal is delivered to the
     process and its action is to invoke a signal-catching function or to t=
er-
     minate the process.  System activity may lengthen the sleep by an inde-
     terminate amount.

(The last sentance is of the most importance.)  sleep is implemented this w=
ay
in most languages because the OS provides no better guarantee for sleep tim=
e.

--=20
Eric Hodel - drbrain@segment7.net - http://segment7.net
All messages signed with fingerprint:
FEC2 57F1 D465 EB15 5D6E  7C11 332A 551C 796C 9F04


--qhD8kUEc5MK9MdKG
Content-Type: application/pgp-signature
Content-Disposition: inline

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.2.2 (FreeBSD)

iD8DBQFAygM5MypVHHlsnwQRAoctAJ9cn9R7pjbhW3nQMH2wFkVChZbP+ACgj48y
nQAFTay7HL5ddiYf8Vwxfdw=
=fP4O
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

--qhD8kUEc5MK9MdKG--