How to stop a 60 second timer when a certain event takes place ?

Using Arduino Programming Questions
1

For a project I have a timer which increases x by every second, from 1 to 60. This continues until either the 60 seconds is reached or the PIR reading is high. I have tried a for loop inside a do while loop. Like below:

do {
      for (x = 1; x <= 60;) {
        delay(1000);
        x++;
        Serial.println(x);
       
      }

    } while (pirStat == HIGH);

However, this does not work. The aim of this is to create a 60 second timer, which carries on until either the 60 seconds is reached or motion is detected. The time between the start and end should be recorded. I also need to store the variable between the start and end temporarily

2

Use millis() for timing. Don’t use delay().
Check the blink without delay example in the IDE.

It’s very easy to then have a Boolean flag as to if you need to check the timer or not. If the motion is detected you just clear the flag so you’re no longer checking the timer.

3

a for loop runs through until the condition that is defined inthe head of the for-loop is true
this condition in your for-loop is x<= 60

the loop counts up variable x and stays inside this part of your code

for (x = 1; x <= 60;) {[color=#222222][/color]
        delay(1000);[color=#222222][/color]
        x++;[color=#222222][/color]
        Serial.println(x);

only after reaching x = 60 your condition

while (pirStat == HIGH)

is checked again.
That's the reason why it does not work this way.

You have two things that shall stop the count-down
60 seconds have passed by
pitstat == HIGH

It will work if have one while-loop that checks for two things
are 60 seconds over?
is pitstat == HIGH?

delay(1000) blocks the whole microcontroller for 1000 milliseconds = 1 second.
Nothing else but delaying is done.

This means whenever pirstat goes HIGH if your code includes a delay the oirstat == HIGH gets only detected if the last delay is over. which means there is a delay in stopping the counter from 0,1 to 0,999 seconds.
That is the reason why you should use millis() instead of delay().

So re-think the conditions and write a new version
best regards Stefan
any newbee can apply the most professional habit from the first line of code they write on their own:
add only ONE thing at a time. Test/debug that ONE thing until that ONE thing works reliable - repeat.
The sad thing is: only the REAL professionals write code this way.

4