Wednesday, December 7, 2011

System.Threading.Timer vs. System.Timers.Timer



Timer provides mechanism to execute method at specific intervals. Dotnet Framework provides two types of Timers.

1.        System.Threading.Timer

System.Threading.Timer is easiest and simplest to implement. We need to provide delegate to constructor of timer object. We also need to provide other information like state, duetime and period while creations of Timer object. Below is the Timer class constructor signature.

public Timer(TimerCallback callback, object state, int dueTime, int period);

First parameter is callback method which will repeatedly call at specified period. Second parameter accepts value as an object to the method if you want to pass. Third parameter accepts due time after that time your method will start executing. The last parameter is period which will call method repeatedly at specified period. Let’s have a look on below code.

using System.Threading;
public class MyClass
{
    public static void RunSnippet()
    {
       Timer t1 = new Timer(HelloMessage, null, 2000, 500);
       Console.ReadLine();
       t1.Dispose();
    }
    public static void HelloMessage(object obj)
    {
        Console.WriteLine("Hello World...");
    }
}


As per above example the HelloMessage will get called every 500ms after 2000ms have elapsed. The dispose method will stop the timer as well remove from memory. Timer internally uses ThreadPool to execute callback method.

2.        System.Timers.Timer

System.Timers.Timer is almost similar to System.Threading.Timer. System.Timers.Timer calls event repeatedly on certain interval. This timer also known as server based timer. This timer is used in MultiThreading to call Elapsed events. System.Timers.Timer provides more properties and methods compare to System.Threading.Timer. Below are some important properties of System.Timers.Timer.

Interval     – Specifies the interval time to raise the elapsed event.
Elapsed    – Specifies event (callback delegate)
Enabled    – Used to start/stop timer.
Start        – Used to start timer.
Stop         – Used to stop timer.

using System.Timers;

public class MyClass
{
   public static void RunSnippet()
   {
        Timer t1 = new Timer();
        t1.Interval = 500;
        t1.Elapsed += new ElapsedEventHandler(t1_Elapsed);
        t1.Start();
        Console.ReadLine();
        t1.Stop();
        Console.ReadLine();
        t1.Dispose();
   }
   static void t1_Elapsed(object sender, ElapsedEventArgs e)
   {
        Console.WriteLine("Hello World...");
   }
}


The t1_Elapsed event will automatically get called every 500ms after starting t1 timer. 


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