MATLAB Programming Fundamentals - MathWorks

Schedule Command Execution Using Timer

In this section...

“Overview” on page 27-2

“Example: Displaying a Message” on page 27-3

Overview

The MATLAB software includes a timer object that you can use to schedule the execution

of MATLAB commands. This section describes how you can create timer objects, start a

timer running, and specify the processing that you want performed when a timer fires. A

timer is said to fire when the amount of time specified by the timer object elapses and the

timer object executes the commands you specify.

To use a timer, perform these steps:

1 Create a timer object.

You use the timer function to create a timer object.

2 Specify which MATLAB commands you want executed when the timer fires and

control other aspects of timer object behavior.

You use timer object properties to specify this information. To learn about all the

properties supported by the timer object, see timer and set. You can also set timer

object properties when you create them, in step 1.

3 Start the timer object.

After you create the timer object, you must start it, using either the start or

startat function.

4 Delete the timer object when you are done with it.

After you are finished using a timer object, you should delete it from memory. See

delete for more information.

NoteThe specified execution time and the actual execution of a timer can vary because

timer objects work in the MATLAB single-threaded execution environment. The length of

this time lag is dependent on what other processing MATLAB is performing. To force the

execution of the callback functions in the event queue, include a call to the drawnow

function in your code. The drawnow function flushes the event queue.

27 Program Scheduling