what is the best way to long pause an exe

Question

I have made a program in c++ for changing the password of a system and I wanna run it for every 2 hours,then I end up with two choice in c++ ,one is Sleep(ms) and the other is using recent thread lib this_thread::sleep_for(2h)[ 2h using std::chrono_literals].

The doubt I have been wandering is, does long pausing an exe will work the way we want, is it any other better way than what i mentioned?

I have also planned to put my exe as a windows service.

What is your question? What problem are you trying to solve? You appear to have your solution already? — Lightness Races in Orbit, Jul 26 '16 at 11:23
I want to confirm whether my solution is what ultimately chosen by everyone as best. — RaGa__M, Jul 26 '16 at 11:25
@Richard_G your approach in general wouldn't be *ultimately chosen by everyone as best*. — eerorika, Jul 26 '16 at 11:26
Why not simply start it every two hours using operating system scheduler? — Ari0nhh, Jul 26 '16 at 11:27
user2079303, i am looking for the some one who suggest me the best. — RaGa__M, Jul 26 '16 at 11:27
@Richard_G: What does "best" mean? According to what metrics? To suit what requirements? You are being extraordinarily vague. — Lightness Races in Orbit, Jul 26 '16 at 11:27
lightness, I don't want anyone who come after me and look at my code then say he should have done something better than this! — RaGa__M, Jul 26 '16 at 11:30
Ari0nhh,No scheduled task, as I am changing the user password by overriding some of the user info I prefer service because it run as a system process and I hope it has high privilege than what it run as just task — RaGa__M, Jul 26 '16 at 11:43
@Richard_G So? Windows `at` scheduler runs as a `SYSTEM` account. Unix `cron` tasks could be executed from `root` as well. — Ari0nhh, Jul 27 '16 at 04:08

score 2 · Answer 1 · answered Jul 26 '16 at 11:34

2

any other better way than what i mentioned?

Yes.

I suggest, that you do not pause the program at. Simply do the thing, and exit.

Extract the scheduling part to a separate program. You don't even need to write this scheduler, because it already exists on most operating systems.

answered Jul 26 '16 at 11:34

eerorika

232,697
12
197
326

user2079303,No scheduled task, as I am changing the user password by overriding some of the user info I prefer service because it run as a system process and I hope it has high privilege than what it run as just task – RaGa__M Jul 26 '16 at 11:42

score 2 · Answer 2 · answered Jul 26 '16 at 11:34

If you have some task that must be run periodically with long periods of waiting, you should use a program or script, that does the task and exits, and a scheduler, which handles the waiting. There're also questions you need to consider, for example:

do you need to start your task if the scheduled time was missed (due to reboot, for example)
do you allow several of your tasks to run at once, if time it takes to complete is longer than wait period

What you're trying to do is to implement a scheduler yourself. If this is what you want, then sleep is a posix function, and chrono::thread::sleep_for is cross-platform, so it's better to use the second one.

However, it's not generally recommended to implement schedulers, moreover, so simple ones.

what is the best way to long pause an exe

2 Answers2