How to call a function at specified date time? - actionscript-3

Question

I want to call a method at 23:55 of the day,
how to do this in actionscript 3?

Answer 1

I'd say you create a loop that checks the current time throught the Date Object.
package {
import flash.display.Sprite;
import flash.utils.clearInterval;
import flash.utils.setInterval;
public class TimeCheck extends Sprite
{
private var interval:int;
public function TimeCheck()
{
interval = setInterval( checkTime, 1000 );//check performed every second
checkTime();
}
private function checkTime():void
{
var date:Date = new Date();
if ( date.hours == 23 && date.minutes == 55 )//actual time check
{
clearInterval( interval );//kills the loop
//... do something ...
}
}
}
}
note that this is executed client-side so the client time will be used. there may be a way to sync it to a server time though.
hope it helps

Answer 2

AS3 has timeouts (e.g. setTimout) like JavaScript. The use of setTimeout in AS is talked about here. Given the two dates (now and when the alarm should trigger), compute the difference in milliseconds and use it as the timeout parameter.
Alternatively (and ever so much less efficiently, but not enough to bat an eye over), setTimeout could be run every minute and if it is the "magical time" (or past it when the previous interval was before!, remember need 2x the frequency to observe all changes and a clock-shift could occur...) then sound the alarm.
Note that there are some limitations like the AS host being closed during the timeout period or clock shifts. Likely no DST to worry about here, but daylight-savings issues do come up when dealing with dates/times.
Happy coding.
Edit: AS also has the Timer class which is an wrapper for setTimeout/setInterval/clearTimeout/clearInterval functionality. In any case, if "working with objects" is preferred.

Answer 3

I haven't tested it but something like this should work...
var eventDate:Date = new Date();
eventDate.setHours( 23, 55 );
var now:Date = new Date();
var delay:Number = eventDate.time - now.time;
if( delay > 0 )//if we haven't yet passed 23:55
{
var timer:Timer = new Timer( delay , 1 );
timer.addEventListener( TimerEvent.TIMER , yourMethod );
timer.start();
}

Answer 4

I believe the above solutions work; however, they appear to be very costly in terms of performance. I have a two-liner that is (relatively) elegant and straight-forward. The solution uses an anonymous function, client-side time, and assumes you are given a parameter, startDate:Date. I have not tested this, so there might be a simple logic error, but the idea should give someone ideas.
var timer:Timer = (new Timer(startDate.time - (new Date()).time, 1)).addEventListener(TimerEvent.TIMER, function():void {
// This area is called after the allocated time.
});
timer.start();