Command: sleep
SLEEP is a DOS port of the UNIX program by the same name.
SLEEP is primarily intended to suspend execution of batch
files for a specified time. SLEEP honours the DOS switchar
setting and gives up time-slices to operating systems that
support it.
Syntax:
leep [--help] [--version] seconds
Options:
--help
/? * displays help and exits successfully. When this option is
used, sleep does not suspend execution. This option cannot
be used with other options. * Note: sleep checks for the
switchar defined in DOS. If you have set a different
SWITCHAR in DOS, sleep will honour your preferred setting.
--version
/v * displays version and exits successfully. When this option
is used, sleep does not suspend execution. This option
cannot be used with other options. * Note: sleep checks
for the switchar defined in DOS. If you have set a
different switchar in DOS, sleep will honour your preferred
setting.
Comments:
The sleep command continues running until the specified number of
seconds has elapsed. sleep can delay execution of a program or
produce periodic execution in conjunction with shell commands.
The seconds argument can be either a number of seconds or a more
general time description of the form nhnmns, with nh, nm, and s being
optional. The maximum sleep duration is 2,147,483,647 seconds, which
works out to 596,523 hours, 14 minutes and 7 seconds. That, I think,
should be just about long enough for anybody. ;-)
Possible exit status values (ERRORLEVELS / EXITCODES) are:
0 Successful completion.
2 Failure because seconds value was not specified or is invalid.
Every now and then there is a "Runtime error 215 at 0000:096A".
Especially with different virtual machines. The programmer is informed.
Examples:
sleep 1h15m30s sleeps for 1 hour, 5 minutes, 30 seconds - not tested
sleep 24 sleeps for 24 seconds - works!
sleep 5m sleeps for 5 minutes - does not work
See also:
errorlevel/exitcode
runtime
switchar
Copyright © 2000 Trane Francks, help version 2023 W. Spiegl.
This file is derived from the FreeDOS Spec Command HOWTO.
See the file H2Cpying for copying conditions.