Timer for Python game

Question

I\'m trying to create a simple game where the point is to collect as many blocks as you can in a certain amount of time, say 10 seconds. How can I get a timer to begin ticking a

Answer 1

import time

now = time.time()
future = now + 10
while time.time() < future:
    # do stuff
    pass

Alternatively, if you've already got your loop:

while True:
    if time.time() > future:
        break
    # do other stuff

This method works well with pygame, since it pretty much requires you to have a big main loop.

Answer 2

In this example the loop is run every second for ten seconds:

import datetime, time
then = datetime.datetime.now() + datetime.timedelta(seconds=10)
while then > datetime.datetime.now():
    print 'sleeping'
    time.sleep(1)

Answer 3

For a StopWatch helper class, here is my solution which gives you precision on output and also access to the raw start time:

class StopWatch:
    def __init__(self):
        self.start()
    def start(self):
        self._startTime = time.time()
    def getStartTime(self):
        return self._startTime
    def elapsed(self, prec=3):
        prec = 3 if prec is None or not isinstance(prec, (int, long)) else prec
        diff= time.time() - self._startTime
        return round(diff, prec)
def round(n, p=0):
    m = 10 ** p
    return math.floor(n * m + 0.5) / m

Answer 4

New to the python world!
I need a System Time independent Stopwatch so I did translate my old C++ class into Python:

from ctypes.wintypes import DWORD
import win32api
import datetime

class Stopwatch:

    def __init__(self):
        self.Restart()

    def Restart(self):
        self.__ulStartTicks = DWORD(win32api.GetTickCount()).value

    def ElapsedMilliSecs(self):
        return DWORD(DWORD(win32api.GetTickCount()).value-DWORD(self.__ulStartTicks).value).value

    def ElapsedTime(self):
        return datetime.timedelta(milliseconds=self.ElapsedMilliSecs())

This has no 49 days run over issue due to DWORD math but NOTICE that GetTickCount has about 15 milliseconds granularity so do not use this class if your need 1-100 milliseconds elapsed time ranges.

Any improvement or feedback is welcome!

Answer 5

I use this function in my python programs. The input for the function is as example:
value = time.time()

def stopWatch(value):
    '''From seconds to Days;Hours:Minutes;Seconds'''

    valueD = (((value/365)/24)/60)
    Days = int (valueD)

    valueH = (valueD-Days)*365
    Hours = int(valueH)

    valueM = (valueH - Hours)*24
    Minutes = int(valueM)

    valueS = (valueM - Minutes)*60
    Seconds = int(valueS)


    print Days,";",Hours,":",Minutes,";",Seconds




start = time.time() # What in other posts is described is

***your code HERE***

end = time.time()         
stopWatch(end-start) #Use then my code

Answer 6

The threading.Timer object (documentation) can count the ten seconds, then get it to set an Event flag indicating that the loop should exit.

The documentation indicates that the timing might not be exact - you'd have to test whether it's accurate enough for your game.