Pause a Script until a set time - but what about Daylight Savings ?

[leegold]

Hi,

For my application knowing the actual local time is important.

Say it's 8:16pm and I want a funtion to execute at 3:58AM. So I tell it to sleep for 7hrs plus 42min.  I like sleep() that because I hear it saves resources. But what happens if it's daylight savings and clocks are offset an hour? Then it runs at the wrong time by an hour.

If I told the script to somehow check the system time every few seconds (loop _now) that would do it but I hear it's not an efficient wat to do it. Or, using the windows task scheduler, but the task scheduler can require a user password to run AFAIK, and I'm not into asking a user to do anything but set a time .

I could sleep for 30 sec then check the system clock then sleep another 30 secs the check...until it's time...(?)

I guess I'm finding a problem with any way I can think off. Maybe it's best to not have a user pick a time like 3:58AM but just pick a time interval to wait, and if they don't know it's Daylight savings it's their issue...

Any suggestions appreciated.

Thanks,

 

[TheSaint]

Well, if your system automatically updates itself for Daylight Savings, then you could just interrogate the system, an hour or so before due time - get a time stamp initially, then do a comparison at that later time.

The only other way I can think, is to hard set the Date of change and accommodate it that way. Or some combination of the two, using a date range.

Edited July 5, 2013 by TheSaint

[orbs]

"(loop _now) that would do it but I hear it's not an efficient wat to do it":

this is the most reliable and simple way. efficient? it does not hog your CPU at all, you can (and are advised to) check it. to minimize any CPU usage, loop with some sleep. you don't have to check system time every millisecond, right?