Updating Display while waiting

Projects Programming
1

Hi guys,
it seems quite easy but in some way I´m stuck - I need to find a way updating my (temperature) Display while waiting. Delay() obviously doesn´t work and with the Timer libraries I tried it didn´t come around (maybe just used in a wrong way). Anyways, to make it more concrete here is the code:

....
void loop(){
// receiving serial commands
switchByte = Serial.parseInt();
delayByte = Serial.parseInt();

//depending on switchByte it switches to either case 1 or 2
if (switchByte == 0){
state = 1;
}
else if(switchByte == 1){
state = 2;
}

switch (state){
case 1:
// Now it should take the delayByte (i.e. 3 seconds) and updating the Display (displayTemperature() ) while waiting, so I can´t use the delay function
?????

// after the 3 Seconds do something else
....
}

void displayTemperature(){
....
}

WOuld appreciate very much your help on that. Thanks!

2

Hello,

Look the Blink without delay example

3

While waiting for what? You really need to define your requirements. Reading two ints on every pass through loop() is a BAD idea. If nothing is available on the serial port, a bunch of time will be wasted and then switchByte and delayByte will both be 0.

4

thanks for the suggestions. I simply put a while loop and it works:

currentMillis = millis();
stopTime = currentMillis + delayTime1;
while(currentMillis < stopTime){
currentMillis = millis();
displayTemperature();
}

5 
stopTime = currentMillis + delayTime1;

Adding time like this is not advised.

startTime = millis();
while(millis() - startTime < delayTime1)
{
}

Subtraction is guaranteed to work even when millis() rolls over. Addition is not.