From: Bosko Ivanisevic <bosko.ivanisevic@...>
Date: 2009-04-09T15:50:09+09:00
Subject: Re: Exit loop after checking for some time

On Apr 9, 4:59 am, Claire Hill <cart...@gmail.com> wrote:
> hi all, i'm really new to ruby and i need to do a script that will check
> my email every 5minutes and after 20minutes of no new mail it will
> produce "test fail" (im a tester by the way). i have found a cool code
> for checking email every 5min but i could not find a way to stop it
> after 20minutes? any help is greatly appreciated :)
>
> here's the code: (i took credit to the originator of the code here and
> my sincere thanks..:))
>
> def time_block
>   start_time = Time.now
>   Thread.new { yield }
>   Time.now - start_time
> end
>
> def repeat_every(seconds)
>  begin
>     time_spent = time_block { yield }
>     sleep(seconds - time_spent)
>  end while time_spent < seconds
> end
>
> repeat_every(300) { # checking of email ever 5 minutes
>   puts "Start checking: #{Time.now}"
>   # email checking here
>   puts "End checking: #{Time.now}"}
>
> --
> Posted viahttp://www.ruby-forum.com/.

Easiest way is to add one more argument to the repeat_every function:

def repeat_every(seconds, checks_count)
 check_no = 0
 begin
    time_spent = time_block { yield }
    check_no += 1
    break if check_no >= checks_count
    sleep(seconds - time_spent)
 end while time_spent < seconds
end

And call it with:

repeat_every(300, 4) {....}