How do you add a timer to a C# console application

That's very nice, however in order to simulate some time passing we need to run a command that takes some time and that's very clear in second example.

However, the style of using a for loop to do some functionality forever takes a lot of device resources and instead we can use the Garbage Collector to do some thing like that.

We can see this modification in the code from the same book CLR Via C# Third Ed.

using System;
using System.Threading;

public static class Program {

   public static void Main() {
      // Create a Timer object that knows to call our TimerCallback
      // method once every 2000 milliseconds.
      Timer t = new Timer(TimerCallback, null, 0, 2000);
      // Wait for the user to hit <Enter>
      Console.ReadLine();
   }

   private static void TimerCallback(Object o) {
      // Display the date/time when this method got called.
      Console.WriteLine("In TimerCallback: " + DateTime.Now);
      // Force a garbage collection to occur for this demo.
      GC.Collect();
   }
}

Use the System.Threading.Timer class.

System.Windows.Forms.Timer is designed primarily for use in a single thread usually the Windows Forms UI thread.

There is also a System.Timers class added early on in the development of the .NET framework. However it is generally recommended to use the System.Threading.Timer class instead as this is just a wrapper around System.Threading.Timer anyway.

It is also recommended to always use a static (shared in VB.NET) System.Threading.Timer if you are developing a Windows Service and require a timer to run periodically. This will avoid possibly premature garbage collection of your timer object.

Here's an example of a timer in a console application:

using System; 
using System.Threading; 
public static class Program 
{ 
    public static void Main() 
    { 
       Console.WriteLine("Main thread: starting a timer"); 
       Timer t = new Timer(ComputeBoundOp, 5, 0, 2000); 
       Console.WriteLine("Main thread: Doing other work here...");
       Thread.Sleep(10000); // Simulating other work (10 seconds)
       t.Dispose(); // Cancel the timer now
    }
    // This method's signature must match the TimerCallback delegate
    private static void ComputeBoundOp(Object state) 
    { 
       // This method is executed by a thread pool thread 
       Console.WriteLine("In ComputeBoundOp: state={0}", state); 
       Thread.Sleep(1000); // Simulates other work (1 second)
       // When this method returns, the thread goes back 
       // to the pool and waits for another task 
    }
}

From the book CLR Via C# by Jeff Richter. By the way this book describes the rationale behind the 3 types of timers in Chapter 23, highly recommended.

  using System;
  using System.Threading;

  class TimerExample
  {
      static public void Tick(Object stateInfo)
      {
          Console.WriteLine("Tick: {0}", DateTime.Now.ToString("h:mm:ss"));
      }

      static void Main()
      {
          TimerCallback callback = new TimerCallback(Tick);

          Console.WriteLine("Creating timer: {0}\n", 
                             DateTime.Now.ToString("h:mm:ss"));

          // create a one second timer tick
          Timer stateTimer = new Timer(callback, null, 0, 1000);

          // loop here forever
          for (; ; )
          {
              // add a sleep for 100 mSec to reduce CPU usage
              Thread.Sleep(100);
          }
      }
  }

    c:\temp>timer.exe
    Creating timer: 5:22:40

    Tick: 5:22:40
    Tick: 5:22:41
    Tick: 5:22:42
    Tick: 5:22:43
    Tick: 5:22:44
    Tick: 5:22:45
    Tick: 5:22:46
    Tick: 5:22:47