MATLAB Programming

Starting and Stopping Timers
Starting a Timer at a Specified Time
To start a timer object and specify when you want the timer to fire as a date
and time, rather than as the number of seconds to elapse, use the startat
function.
The startat function starts a timer object running and lets you specify the
date, hour, minute, and second when youwanttothetimertoexecute. You
specify the time as a MATLAB serial date number or as a specially formatted
date text string. See the startat function reference page for details.
This example creates a timer object that displays a message after an hour has
elapsed. The startat function starts the timer object running and calculates
the value of the StartDelay property based on the time you specify.
t2=timer('TimerFcn','disp(''It has been an hour now.'')');
startat(t2,now+1/24);
Stopping Timer Objects
Once started, the timer object stops running if one of the following conditions
apply:
• The timer function callback (TimerFcn) has been executed the number of
times specified in the TasksToExecute property.
• An error occurred while executing a timer function callback (TimerFcn).
You can also stop a timer object by using the stop function, specifying the
timer object as the only argument. The following example illustrates stopping
a timer object:
1 Create a timer object.
t = timer('TimerFcn','disp(''Hello World!'')', ...
'StartDelay', 100);
2 Start it running.
start(t)
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