Re: [NEWBIE] Structs and stuff

From: Daniel A. Koepke (dkoepke@circlemud.org)
Date: 09/03/01


On Mon, 3 Sep 2001, Luca wrote:


> PULSE_VIOLENCE and i noticed that PULSE_VIOLENCE was (2 RL_SECOND) and (2
> RL_SECOND) => * PASSES_PER_SEC => (1000000 / OPT_USEC)
> and OPT_USEC => 100000 /* 10 passes per sec */.

RL_SECOND: A real (RL) second.
PASSES_PER_SEC: The number of times the main loop is executed in a second.
OPT_USEC: The amount of time (microseconds) spent sleeping in the loop.

It's generally fairly obvious if you know how the loop works, but it can
be a bit confusing for newbies.  In general, the main loop works by doing:

  * Scan for I/O on server socket.
  * Dispatch I/O events.
  * Sleep for a short time (OPT_USEC).
  * Handle events at this interval.

The sleep prevents the code from being executed as fast as possible over
and over and over again, which would be CPU-intensive.  The sleep also
helps in timing when world events should happen (such as fight rounds).
If we're sleeping OPT_USEC per loop, then, obviously, there's only so many
times per second the loop can be executed.  In this case, we determine
this using the PASSES_PER_SEC macro.  The constant 1000000 is the number
of microseconds per second.  Since OPT_USEC is in microseconds (which is
what a usec is; u is meant to represent the Greek character mu), dividing
the number of microseconds per second by the number of milliseconds to
sleep gives, obviously, the number of times per second we're going to loop
(PASSES_PER_SEC).  If you're sleeping two real seconds, then you need to
sleep 2 * the number of passes per second (10) or for 20 passes.

It's that simple.

-dak

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