Sleep

This function suspends the execution of the current thread for a specified interval.

void Sleep(
DWORD dwMilliseconds); 

Parameters

• dwMilliseconds
  Specifies the time, in milliseconds, for which to suspend execution. A value of zero causes the thread to relinquish the remainder of its time slice to any other thread of equal priority that is ready to run. If there are no other threads of equal priority ready to run, the function returns immediately, and the thread continues execution. A value of INFINITE causes an infinite delay.

Return Values

None.

Remarks

A thread can relinquish the remainder of its time slice by calling this function with a sleep time of zero milliseconds.

You have to be careful when using Sleep and code that directly or indirectly creates windows. If a thread creates any windows, it must process messages. Message broadcasts are sent to all windows in the system. If you have a thread that uses Sleep with infinite delay, the system will deadlock. Two examples of code that indirectly creates windows are DDE and COM CoInitialize. Therefore, if you have a thread that creates windows, use MsgWaitForMultipleObjects or MsgWaitForMultipleObjectsEx, rather than Sleep.

Requirements

Note   This API is part of the complete Windows CE OS package as provided by Microsoft. The functionality of a particular platform is determined by the original equipment manufacturer (OEM) and some devices may not support this API.

See Also

CoInitialize, MsgWaitForMultipleObjects, MsgWaitForMultipleObjectsEx

 Last updated on Tuesday, July 13, 2004

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