CODEWITHSUNDEEP
c#wpfstopwatch
Guapo
Guapo

Reputation: 3482

Alternative to stopwatch?

I am working on a very simple stopwatch using WPF but using the System.Diagnostics stopwatch was very slow and not reliable at all, compared to my system clock every 1 second from my application was 3 seconds on an actual clock.

I did some search about stopwatch being slow, found lots of results but no solution to it, so I decided to come up with my own counter.

Here is an sample of what I came up with:

System.Windows.Threading.DispatcherTimer _update;
DateTime _started;
bool isRunning = false;

The update thread:

_update = new System.Windows.Threading.DispatcherTimer(new TimeSpan(0, 0, 0, 0, 1), System.Windows.Threading.DispatcherPriority.Normal, delegate
{
    if (isRunning)
        iTimer.Content = new DateTime((DateTime.Now - _started).Ticks).ToString("HH:mm:ss");
}, this.Dispatcher);

I have 2 buttons, bToggle which is resposible for starting, stopping and resuming it and another button called bReset.

private void bReset_Click(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
{
    isRunning = false;
    iTimer.Content = "00:00:00";
    bToggle.Content = "Start";
}

private void bToggle_Click(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
{
    if ((string)bToggle.Content == "Start")
    {
        isRunning = true;
        _started = DateTime.Now;
        bToggle.Content = "Stop";
    }
    else if ((string)bToggle.Content == "Resume")
    {
        isRunning = true;
        bToggle.Content = "Stop";
    }
    else
    {
        isRunning = false;
        bToggle.Content = "Resume";
    }
}

It works fine to start and reset but since I am using the actual time if I stop and resume, it will jump the seconds until the actual time.

How could I solve this problem or is there an alternative to stopwatch that actually have a good accuracy on the current time ?

Upvotes: 6

Views: 4917

Answers (4)

Dariusz Woźniak
Dariusz Woźniak

Reputation: 10350

MiniProfiler

Answering to the topic, as an alternative to the Stopwatch, you may use the MiniProfiler:

You may use the profiler step to get data to analyze, like:

var profiler = MiniProfiler.StartNew("My Profiler Name");
using (profiler.Step("Main Work"))
{
    // Do some work...
}

There's separate UI for the profiler, but you can grab the data in the debug mode or write it to the text file.

Links:

Upvotes: 0

jrb
jrb

Reputation: 1728

Use System.Timers.Timer

You can start and stop this, and set a counter in the timers tick event.

This is a simple example:

public partial class MainWindow : Window
{
    private Timer _timer;
    private int _time;

    public MainWindow()
    {
        InitializeComponent();

        _time = 0;

        _timer = new Timer(1000);
        _timer.Elapsed += new ElapsedEventHandler(_timer_Elapsed);
    }

    void _timer_Elapsed(object sender, ElapsedEventArgs e)
    {

        Dispatcher.Invoke(new Action(() =>
                                         {
                                             _time++;
                                             tbTime.Text = _time.ToString();
                                         }));

    }

    private void btnStartStop_Click(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
    {
        if (_timer.Enabled)
        {
            _timer.Stop();
        }
        else
        {
            _timer.Start();
        }
    }
}

Xaml:

<Grid>
    <StackPanel>
        <Button Name="btnStartStop" Content="start/stop timer" Click="btnStartStop_Click" />
        <TextBlock Name="tbTime" Text="00:00" />
    </StackPanel>
</Grid>

Upvotes: 1

Niki
Niki

Reputation: 15867

I think this line is your problem:

_update = new System.Windows.Threading.DispatcherTimer(new TimeSpan(0, 0, 0, 0, 1), System.Windows.Threading.DispatcherPriority.Normal

It tells WPF that you want your delegate to execute 1000 times per second, and to schedule it at the second-highest priority. That's a higher priority than Render and DataBind, and I think both Render and DataBind are needed to actually display the updated value you put in iTimer.Content.

You should set the DispatcherPriority to Background and use a lower frequency (e.g. 20 ms - humans can't see anything faster than 50 fps, anyway.)

Upvotes: 0

usr
usr

Reputation: 171178

You need to intruduce an additional variable TimeSpan accumulatedTime in which you save the elapsed interval whenever someone clicks stop.

And:

iTimer.Content = (new DateTime((DateTime.Now - _started).Ticks) + accumulatedTime).ToString("HH:mm:ss");

Upvotes: 2

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