[erlang-questions] max timeout

[Hynek Vychodil]

It should be much more simpler to do it without modify timer_server:

sleep(Time) ->
    case whereis(timer_server) of
       undefined -> receive after Time -> ok end;
       _ ->
          Ref = make_ref(),
          send_after(Time, Ref),
          receive Ref -> ok end
    end.

On Fri, Aug 22, 2008 at 12:11 AM, Per Hedeland <per@REDACTED> wrote:

> Alpár Jüttner <alpar@REDACTED> wrote:
> >
> >As I recall, someone noted on that thread that timer:sleep() works well
> >for arbitrarily large numbers.
>
> I thought that might have been me:-( - but I see now that I just said
> "the timer module" and gave an example using timer:send_after/2, so I
> was almost right...
>
> >Now I looked at the source and found that this is _not_ true. Strangely
> >enough, all the functions of the timer modules seem to work correctly
> >with large numbers _except_ timer:sleep() which has a definition as
> >simple as this:
> >
> >sleep(T) ->
> >    receive
> >    after T -> ok
> >    end.
>
> Ouch. But no-one will ever need to sleep for 50 days or more, right?:-)
>
> >It might be worth fixing.
>
> And I guess I half-owe the fix - the problem is (as I discovered...)
> that there may be (is) code, um, "out there", that relies on being able
> to use timer:sleep/1 without having the timer_server running *or*
> getting "auto-started". Below is what I believe to be a backwards-
> compatible fix (against R12B-3), but it's pretty ugly - would probably
> be better to e.g.  define a new function long_sleep/1 or somesuch for
> the "unlimited" case.
>
> --Per Hedeland
>
> --- lib/stdlib/src/timer.erl.orig       2007-11-26 19:55:44.000000000 +0100
> +++ lib/stdlib/src/timer.erl    2008-08-21 23:00:45.000000000 +0200
> @@ -75,9 +75,14 @@
>  cancel(BRef) ->
>     req(cancel, BRef).
>
> -sleep(T) ->
> -    receive
> -    after T -> ok
> +sleep(Time) ->
> +    case whereis(timer_server) of
> +       undefined ->
> +           receive
> +           after Time -> ok
> +           end;
> +       _ ->
> +           req(sleep, Time)
>     end.
>
>  %%
> @@ -176,6 +181,13 @@
>            {reply, {error, badarg}, [], next_timeout()}
>     end;
>
> +handle_call({sleep, Time, Started}, From, Ts) ->
> +    Req = {apply_after, {Time, {gen_server, reply, [From, ok]}}, Started},
> +    case handle_call(Req, From, Ts) of
> +        {reply, {ok, _}, _, Timeout} -> {noreply, [], Timeout};
> +        Reply                        -> Reply
> +    end;
> +
>  handle_call({cancel, BRef = {_Time, Ref}, _}, _From, Ts)
>                                            when is_reference(Ref) ->
>     delete_ref(BRef),
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>



-- 
--Hynek (Pichi) Vychodil
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