Timer variable

[infinitysquadron]

Hi all. I'm new to this forum and fairly new to Java. I've been trying to write a game in the QBASIC language, but QB has way to many drawbacks. I'm re-writing it in Java.
This is going ok, but I can't seem to find something that works like the TIMER variable in QB. TIMER is a variable that keeps track of the number of seconds that have passed since midnight. I need it for some real-time delays. Is there a method of some kind that does something similar? Is there maybe another way create a delay accurately on systems of different speeds?

 

[cacaman]

To be honest with you, if you think you're comfortable enough with Java, I believe that the Timer object would best suit your needs. It works in real time, and uses the common mechanism of listeners/events. The documentation is at

http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4.1/docs/api/javax/swing/Timer.html.

If, however, you really want to get the number of seconds that have passed since midnight, you would want to use the Calendar class and do something like:

Calendar now = java.util.Calendar.getInstance();
int seconds = now.get(SECOND) + 60 * (now.get(MINUTE) + 60 * now.get(HOUR));

Ed

 

[infinitysquadron]

Thanx! The timer object looks great with the millisecond accuracy. QB never had that kind of precision. I'll play around with it a bit and see how it works.

 

[infinitysquadron]

I played around with the Timer class for a bit, but I couldn't get it to work. But I don't think it was really what I needed in the first place. What I really need is a simple delay method, that's accuracte in milliseconds. I don't need it to actually do anything. Just do nothing for a few milliseconds. I could just use a recursion method to waste time like some programms do, but that's not very accuracte, especially when I'm giving this to 2 people; one of which has one of the best computers I've ever seen and the other that is being looked at by paleantologists (...spelled wrong I think).

 

[JavaDude32]

Okay, you want this method it sounds like, it's a little odd to explain without knowledge of threading, anyways, try:
Thread.sleep(number of milliseconds);

that should be what you want it sounds.

JavaDude32

 

[infinitysquadron]

Thanx Worked perfectly as soon as I figured out how to

catch

it properly. That was the last of all of the major things I had to learn before I could really start my reprogramming. Now comes the fun part...