# timer – How do I get my Python program to sleep for 50 milliseconds?

## The Question :

591 people think this question is useful

How do I get my Python program to sleep for 50 milliseconds?

912 people think this answer is useful
from time import sleep
sleep(0.05)



95 people think this answer is useful

Note that if you rely on sleep taking exactly 50 ms, you won’t get that. It will just be about it.

72 people think this answer is useful

Use time.sleep():

import time
time.sleep(50 / 1000)



See the Python documentation: https://docs.python.org/library/time.html#time.sleep

1 people think this answer is useful

There is a module called ‘time’ which can help you. I know two ways:

1. sleep

Sleep (reference) asks the program to wait, and then to do the rest of the code.

There are two ways to use sleep:

import time # Import whole time module
print("0.00 seconds")
time.sleep(0.05) # 50 milliseconds... make sure you put time. if you import time!
print("0.05 seconds")



The second way doesn’t import the whole module, but it just sleep.

from time import sleep # Just the sleep function from module time
print("0.00 sec")
sleep(0.05) # Don't put time. this time, as it will be confused. You did
# not import the whole module
print("0.05 sec")


2. Using time since Unix time.

This way is useful if you need a loop to be running. But this one is slightly more complex.

time_not_passed = True
from time import time # You can import the whole module like last time. Just don't forget the time. before to signal it.

init_time = time() # Or time.time() if whole module imported
print("0.00 secs")
while True: # Init loop
if init_time + 0.05 <= time() and time_not_passed: # Time not passed variable is important as we want this to run once. !!! time.time() if whole module imported :O
print("0.05 secs")
time_not_passed = False



1 people think this answer is useful

You can also do it by using the Timer() function.

Code:

from threading import Timer

def hello():
print("Hello")

t = Timer(0.05, hello)
t.start()  # After 0.05 seconds, "Hello" will be printed



1 people think this answer is useful

You can also use pyautogui as:

import pyautogui
pyautogui._autoPause(0.05, False)



If the first argument is not None, then it will pause for first argument’s seconds, in this example: 0.05 seconds

If the first argument is None, and the second argument is True, then it will sleep for the global pause setting which is set with:

pyautogui.PAUSE = int



If you are wondering about the reason, see the source code:

def _autoPause(pause, _pause):
"""If pause is not None, then sleep for pause seconds.
If _pause is True, then sleep for PAUSE seconds (the global pause setting).

This function is called at the end of all of PyAutoGUI's mouse and keyboard functions. Normally, _pause
is set to True to add a short sleep so that the user can engage the failsafe. By default, this sleep
is as long as PAUSE settings. However, this can be override by setting pause, in which case the sleep
is as long as pause seconds.
"""
if pause is not None:
time.sleep(pause)
elif _pause:
assert isinstance(PAUSE, int) or isinstance(PAUSE, float)
time.sleep(PAUSE)