Can the TimedAction library be used to call functions of an object

Question

Currently to use TimedAction for a function a program would look like so:

#include <TimedAction.h>
void functionX();
TimedAction funtionTimed = TimedAction(1000, functionX);
void setup()
{
}
void loop()
{
functionTimed.check();
}
void functionX()
{
 //run function
}

My question is say I have an object class with some functions I would like to use with this TimedAction library. How would this be written?

Answer 1

You can't. The TimedAction class doesn't support the function prototype required for your undefined class (it has to match your class, so can't be written).

You have to call a normal function which then calls the class function, or you have to have your class function as static so it doesn't include the class in the function prototype.

class foo {
 public:
 static void runMe() { 
 // blah blah
 }
};
TimedAction funtionTimed = TimedAction(1000, foo::runMe);

However, TimedAction is pretty simplistic and you don't really need it. You can just write a function to only run every so often:

class foo {
 private:
 uint32_t _runMeTimestamp;
 public:
 void runMe() {
 if (millis() - _runMeTimestamp < 1000) return;
 _runMeTimestamp = millis();
 // blah blah
 }
};
foo myFoo;
void loop() {
 myFoo.runMe();
}

Those two lines of code, plus a variable to store the timestamp in, are all you need to make a function run at periodic intervals.

• walkman118: Thanks, yes I had been using it to call a normal function which then calls the class function, was just curious if I could reduce redundancy
• Maximilian Gerhardt: Protip: You can re-write the library to use std::function instead of raw function pointers. You can then use lambda expressions or std::bind to call into a member function of a particular object. This would be the C++ way to do it.