R: Suspend Execution for a Time Interval

Sys.sleep {base} | R Documentation

## Suspend Execution for a Time Interval

### Description

Suspend execution of R expressions for a given number of seconds

### Usage

    Sys.sleep(time)

### Arguments

`time` | The time interval to suspend execution for, in seconds.

### Details

Using this function allows R to be given very low priority and hence not to interfere with more important foreground tasks. A typical use is to allow a process lauched from R to set itself up and read its input files before R execution is resumed.

The intention is that this function suspends execution of R expressions but wakes the process up often enough to respond to GUI events, typically every 0.5 seconds.

There is no guarantee that the process will sleep for the whole of the specified interval, and it may well take slightly longer in real time to resume execution. The resolution of the time interval is system-dependent, but will normally be down to 0.02 secs or better.

### Value

Invisible `NULL`.

### Note

This function is not implemented on all systems.

### Author(s)

B. D. Ripley

### Examples

    testit <- function(x)
    {
        p1 <- proc.time()
        Sys.sleep(x)
        proc.time() - p1 # The cpu usage should be negligible
    }
    testit(3.7)

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