| getTimer( ) Global Function | Flash 4 |
| determine how long the Player has been running, in milliseconds | | Returns The number of milliseconds that have elapsed since the Player started running. Description The getTimer( ) function indicates how long the Player has been running, in milliseconds. The getTimer( ) function returns a single value, per Player instance, for all movies in the Player. Loading a new .swf does not reset the timer. Prior to Flash 6, developers used multiple calls to getTimer( ) to govern the timed execution of a block of code, or to add time-based features to a movie, such as a countdown in a video game. As of Flash 6, timed code execution should be implemented using setInterval( ). The following code shows a countdown timer function, doCountdown( ), that displays the seconds remaining on screen. For a more sophisticated CountDown class that uses setInterval( ), see Function.apply( ). function doCountdown (countAmount) { // Record the starting time, in milliseconds var startTime = getTimer(); // Initialize a variable to keep track of how much time has passed var elapsed = 0; // Create a text field to display the countdown time in seconds this.createTextField("counterOutput_txt", 1, 0, 0, 200, 20); // With each frame that passes... this.onEnterFrame = function () { // ...check how much time has passed elapsed = getTimer() - startTime; // If the elapsed time is less than the length of our countdown... if (elapsed < countAmount * 1000) { // ...set the text field to show the number of seconds left this.counterOutput_txt.text = countAmount - Math.floor(elapsed / 1000); } else { // ...otherwise, our countdown is done, so tell the user this.counterOutput_txt.text = "Time's Up!"; // Stop checking the time delete this.onEnterFrame; } } } // Usage: doCountDown(60); Example To determine the number of full seconds (rather than milliseconds) that have elapsed during a movie, divide the return value of getTimer( ) by 1000, and trim off the decimal portion with either Math.floor( ), Math.round( ), or Math.ceil( ). For example: numSeconds = Math.floor(getTimer()/1000); The following code loops between two frames until a movie has been playing for more than 10 seconds, after which it breaks out of the timeline loop: now = getTimer(); if (now > 10000) { play(); } else { gotoAndPlay(_currentframe - 1); } The following code does the same thing using setInterval( ): stop(); intID = setInterval(function () { play(); clearInterval(intID); }, 1000); See Also clearInterval( ), Date( ), the Date class, setInterval( ) | 
