21. 4GL Statement Glossary : Sleep
 
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Sleep
Suspends operation of the application for a specified number of seconds.
Syntax
sleep integervalue 
integervalue
Specifies the duration of the specified pause in an application, in number of seconds. The number must be an integer literal or variable.
Description
The 4GL sleep statement stops the application for the number of seconds you specify.
When used with the message statement, it allows a menu-line style message to remain on the frame long enough for an application user to read it. You cannot need a sleep statement if the statements following message requires some time to process.
Example
Display a menu-line style message for three seconds:
message 
  'Please enter an employee number: '; 
sleep 3;