Yet Another C# Blog

In my last couple of articles, we saw the System.Windows.Forms.Timer and the System.Timers.Timer. Today, I shall look at the 3rd form of Timer in the .NET library, the System.Threading.Timer. I refer you again to the that very good article I mentioned a while back, Comparing the Timer Classes in the .NET Framework Class Library by Alex Calvo. Take a moment to read his section on System.Threading.Timer then come back and we will jump right into some code... using System.Threading; public partial class Form1 : Form { public Form1() { InitializeComponent(); timer1 = new System.Threading.Timer(new TimerCallback(timer_elapsed), null, 2000, 1000); } System.Threading.Timer timer1; private void timer_elapsed(object sender) { Console.WriteLine(DateTime.Now.ToString()); TimerEvent(DateTime.Now.ToString(), Thread.CurrentThread.GetHashCode().ToString()); } private delegat...

Today, I take a look at System.Timers.Timer. I suggested an article in my last discussion of timers. The article was written back in 2004, and it says that both the System.Windows.Forms.Timer and the System.Timers.Timer are found in the IDE Toolbox, one on the Windows Forms tab and the other on the Components tab. Well in my stock installation of Visual Studio 2008, both of those timers are System.Windows.Forms.Timer components. This may be due to some install problem I didn't know I had, or it may be the article is correct for Visual Studio .Net 2003 but not 2008. That's okay because you can just add System.Timers.Timer to your project the old fashioned way. I simply start a new Windows Forms project and name it TimerExample2. After dropping a label on my form, I add the following code to my class file (I include a full listing at the end). System.Timers.Timer timer1; //added public Form1() { InitializeComponent(); // added...

Sometimes mundane things turn out to be really nice after all. No, I'm not talking about one of your last dates. I'm talking about timers, yes, the Timer classes in C#. These little tools are found everywhere in programming, and it seemed for the longest time, there was only one stock timer to choose from. Well, now there are three. Before I go any further, let me recommend to you Alex Calvo's MSDN magazine article Timers: Comparing the Timer Classes in the .NET Framework Class Library . Here, you will find some good background for applying timers to your application. But, in this little series, I want to look at how the timers interact with the event loop. This first article in the series will look at the System.Windows.Form.Timer. The System.Windows.Form.Timer is supposed to be synchronous with respect to the rest of your Windows Forms app. That means, if you "sleep" or block in some other way, the timer will stop working (while sleeping). However, progr...