Sleeping in a batch file

Question

When writing a batch file to automate something on a Windows box, I've needed to pause its execution for several seconds (usually in a test/wait loop, waiting for a process to start). At the time, the best solution I could find uses ping (I kid you not) to achieve the desired effect. I've found a better write-up of it here, which describes a callable "wait.bat", implemented as follows:

@ping 127.0.0.1 -n 2 -w 1000 > nul
@ping 127.0.0.1 -n %1% -w 1000> nul

You can then include calls to wait.bat in your own batch file, passing in the number of seconds to sleep.

Apparently the Windows 2003 Resource Kit provides a Unix-like sleep command (at last!). In the meantime, for those of us still using Windows XP, Windows 2000 or (sadly) Windows NT, is there a better way?

I modified the sleep.py script in the accepted answer, so that it defaults to one second if no arguments are passed on the command line:

import time, sys

time.sleep(float(sys.argv[1]) if len(sys.argv) > 1 else 1)

Answer 1

I faced a similar problem, but I just knocked up a very short C++ console application to do the same thing. Just run MySleep.exe 1000 - perhaps easier than downloading/installing the whole resource kit.

#include <tchar.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include "Windows.h"

int _tmain(int argc, _TCHAR* argv[])
{
    if (argc == 2)
    {
        _tprintf(_T("Sleeping for %s ms\n"), argv[1]);
        Sleep(_tstoi(argv[1]));
    }
    else
    {
        _tprintf(_T("Wrong number of arguments.\n"));
    }
    return 0;
}

Answer 2

SLEEP.exe is included in most Resource Kits e.g. The Windows Server 2003 Resource Kit which can be installed on Windows XP too.

Usage:  sleep      time-to-sleep-in-seconds
        sleep [-m] time-to-sleep-in-milliseconds
        sleep [-c] commited-memory ratio (1%-100%)

Answer 3

In Notepad, write:

@echo off
set /a WAITTIME=%1+1
PING 127.0.0.1 -n %WAITTIME% > nul
goto:eof

Now save as wait.bat in the folder C:\WINDOWS\System32, then whenever you want to wait, use:

CALL WAIT.bat <whole number of seconds without quotes>

Answer 4

I have been using this C# sleep program. It might be more convenient for you if C# is your preferred language:

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;
using System.Threading;

namespace sleep
{
    class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            if (args.Length == 1)
            {
                double time = Double.Parse(args[0]);
                Thread.Sleep((int)(time*1000));
            }
            else
            {
                Console.WriteLine("Usage: sleep <seconds>\nExample: sleep 10");
            }
        }
    }
}

Answer 5

The best solution that should work on all Windows versions after Windows 2000 would be:

timeout numbersofseconds /nobreak > nul

Answer 6

The Resource Kit has always included this. At least since Windows 2000.

Also, the Cygwin package has a sleep - plop that into your PATH and include the cygwin.dll (or whatever it's called) and way to go!