Suspend FoxPro execution

Despite all the advances in integration and Automation we often find that the only way to co-ordinate the operation of FoxPro with an external program is for Fox to wait for a file to appear. A snippet like this is a cheap and cheerful way of doing this:

This though has the huge disadvantage that FoxPro continues to execute. The program will be using processor resources to check whether the file exists several hundred times a second. It would be far better if we could free these resources and let the other program get on with its job more quickly. Fox doesn't have a built-in command to suspend itself but it's very easy to call the Windows API.

Calling the Sleep API

You only need two lines of code; one to declare the API and one to call it.

This code runs in Windows 2000, Windows XP and Windows 7.