Start-Sleep

Getting to Know Start-Sleep – A Handy PowerShell Cmdlet

Welcome back to Wahmans PowerShell blog! Today, we’re diving into a straightforward yet immensely useful cmdlet in PowerShell: Start-Sleep. As defined by Microsoft, Start-Sleep suspends activity in a script or session for the specified period of time. While it may sound basic, don’t underestimate the power of pausing – it can help synchronize processes, slow down automation for effect, or help in retry logic where timing is crucial.

Syntax

Start-Sleep [-Seconds] <Int32>
Start-Sleep -Milliseconds <Int32>

Example 1: The Classic Pause (Beginner)

This is your foundational use case: pause a script for a specific number of seconds. This can be really useful when you want to give users a moment to read a message or wait for an external process.

Write-Output "Starting process..."
Start-Sleep -Seconds 5
Write-Output "Process resumed after 5 seconds."

Example 2: Short Delays Using Milliseconds (Intermediate)

Want more refined control over timing? Use the -Milliseconds parameter to pause for durations less than a second.

Write-Output "Waiting for 300 milliseconds..."
Start-Sleep -Milliseconds 300
Write-Output "Resumed after 0.3 seconds!"

Example 3: Retry Logic with Countdown (Intermediate)

In some scenarios, a command may fail because a resource isn’t ready yet. Here’s an example where we retry a command, wait a bit between tries, and add a countdown for user reference.

$attempt = 0
while ($attempt -lt 3) {
    $attempt++
    Write-Output "Attempt $attempt: Trying to connect..."
    # Simulate failure
    $connected = $false

    if ($connected) {
        Write-Output "Connected successfully."
        break
    } else {
        Write-Output "Connection failed. Retrying in 5 seconds..."
        for ($i = 5; $i -gt 0; $i--) {
            Write-Output "$i..."
            Start-Sleep -Seconds 1
        }
    }
}

Example 4: Rate Limiting a Loop (Advanced)

Sometimes an API or server shouldn’t be overwhelmed with requests. Here we limit the rate of our operations inside a loop to one request every 2 seconds.

for ($i = 1; $i -le 5; $i++) {
    Write-Output "Sending request #$i..."
    # Simulate sending a request
    Start-Sleep -Seconds 2
}

Wrapping Up

As you’ve seen, Start-Sleep is more than just a delay – it’s a powerful tool in your scripting toolkit for managing timing and synchronization. Whether you’re building interactive scripts or dealing with unpredictable systems, a short pause can make a big difference.

Happy scripting, and I will see you in the next post!