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Delay function in C

Delay in C: delay function is used to suspend execution of a program for a particular time.

Declaration: void delay(unsigned int);

Here unsigned int is the number of milliseconds (remember 1 second = 1000 milliseconds). To use delay function in your program you should include the "dos.h" header file which is not a part of standard C library.

Delay in C program

If you don't wish to use delay function then you can use loops to produce delay in a C program.

#include<stdio.h>

int main()
{
   int c, d;
   
   for (c = 1; c <= 32767; c++)
       for (d = 1; d <= 32767; d++)
       {}
       
   return 0;
}

We have not written any statement in the loop body. You may write some statements that doesn't affect logic of the program.

C programming code for delay

#include<stdio.h>
#include<stdlib.h>

main()
{
    printf("This C program will exit in 10 seconds.\n");        

    delay(10000);                        

    return 0;
}

This C program exits in ten seconds, after the printf function is executed the program waits for 10000 milliseconds or 10 seconds and then it terminates.