chumicro-timing-experimental 0.1.0

Cross-runtime millisecond tick helpers and periodic timing utilities.

chumicro-timing

Cross-runtime millisecond tick helpers and periodic timing utilities for CircuitPython, MicroPython, and CPython.

All timing is non-blocking — nothing in this library calls time.sleep(). Capture ticks_ms() once per loop iteration and pass the shared timestamp to Heartbeat.poll().

Installation

# CPython (pip)
pip install chumicro-timing

# CircuitPython (circup)
circup bundle-add ChuMicro/chumicro-bundle
circup install chumicro-timing

# MicroPython (mip)
mpremote mip install github:ChuMicro/chumicro-bundle/chumicro_timing

For experimental (pre-release) versions from the develop branch:

pip install chumicro-timing-experimental
circup install chumicro-timing-experimental
mpremote mip install github:ChuMicro/chumicro-bundle/chumicro_timing_experimental

Quick example

from chumicro_timing import Heartbeat, ticks_ms

heartbeat = Heartbeat(period_ms=1000)

while True:
    now = ticks_ms()
    if heartbeat.poll(now):
        print("one second elapsed")
    # ... do other work ...

What's included

Tick functions

Symbol	Description
ticks_ms()	Monotonic millisecond counter, wraps every ~6.2 days
ticks_diff(end, start)	Wraparound-safe signed difference
ticks_add(ticks, delta)	Wraparound-safe addition

Heartbeat

Symbol	Description
Heartbeat(period_ms, ticks=None)	Periodic timer that fires once per elapsed period
Heartbeat.poll(now_ms)	Returns True once per period and advances the timer
Heartbeat.is_due(now_ms)	Check whether the period has elapsed (without advancing)
Heartbeat.reset(now_ms)	Restart the timer from the given timestamp
Heartbeat.period_ms	The configured period (read-only property)

Testing

Symbol	Description
FakeTicks(start_ms=0)	Deterministic tick source for host-side tests
FakeTicks.advance(amount_ms)	Move the fake clock forward

Platform support

The tick source is selected automatically at import time:

Priority	Source	Runtime
1	supervisor.ticks_ms	CircuitPython 7+
2	time.ticks_ms	MicroPython, some CircuitPython builds
3	time.monotonic_ns	CPython, some CircuitPython boards
4	time.monotonic	Final fallback (float seconds → int ms)

All sources are masked to a 2²⁹ ms period, so behavior is identical regardless of which source is used.

Testing your code

The chumicro_timing.testing module provides FakeTicks for deterministic host-side tests — no wall-clock waits:

from chumicro_timing import Heartbeat
from chumicro_timing.testing import FakeTicks

fake = FakeTicks()
heartbeat = Heartbeat(period_ms=100, ticks=fake)

now = fake.ticks_ms()
assert heartbeat.poll(now) is False

fake.advance(100)
now = fake.ticks_ms()
assert heartbeat.poll(now) is True

Docs

• User guide — getting started, usage patterns, platform notes
• API reference — full API documentation
• Testing helpers — using FakeTicks in your tests