HOWTO: Determine the Differences Between DoEvents and Sleep

ID: Q158175


The information in this article applies to:
  • Microsoft Visual Basic Learning, Professional, and Enterprise Editions for Windows, versions 5.0, 6.0
  • Microsoft Visual Basic Standard, Professional, and Enterprise Editions, 32-bit only, for Windows, version 4.0


SUMMARY

This article explains the differences between the Visual Basic DoEvents


function and the Sleep() Windows API function. 


MORE INFORMATION

DoEvents is a Visual Basic function that yields execution so the operating system can process other events. This function cleans out the message loop and executes any other pending business in the Visual Basic runtime. Upon completing the pending business execution, the function calls the Sleep function with zero (0) as the argument so that the remaining time slice can be used to check the queue.

The Sleep 32-bit API function is a subset of the DoEvents function. The Visual Basic program calling the function and the Visual Basic runtime executable and interactions with Windows are immediately put to sleep by this function. The programs remain inactive for the time in milliseconds specified in the Sleep argument.

The Sleep function allows you to specify the amount of time your applications are inactive. The DoEvents function returns control to the Visual Basic program after the operating system has finished processing the events in its queue and all keys in the SendKeys queue have been sent.

Additional query words: Sleep DoEvents kbVBp kbdsd kbDSupport kbVBp400 kbVBp500 kbVBp600
KBWIN32SDK KBAPI

Keywords : kbGrpVB
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Platform : WINDOWS
Issue type : kbhowto


Last Reviewed: January 5, 2000
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