Timeout

[This is preliminary documentation and subject to change.] 

To specify how long the files of an interactive show remain on a viewer's computer, use the reserved variable, Timeout.

Files created for an interactive show are generally needed only for the duration of a specific program. To prevent these files from accumulating over time and quickly filling the viewer's hard disk, a garbage collector removes files when their timeout value has been exceeded.

The timeout value is an absolute time relative to the beginning of a program (0 seconds or 00:00:00.0 in SMPTE time code).

By default, all files transmitted by the Stream Compiler are given a default timeout value which can be set by the built-in variable Timeout.

Syntax

Timeout = hh:mm:ff ;

where hh is an integer denoting hours, mm is an integer denoting minutes, and ff is an integer denoting frames.

Examples

The Timeout value you set is active upon only those files that come after the occurrence of the Timeout line of text. For example,

00:01:56.40 "storm010.htm" ;
Timeout = 00:31:00.0;
00:02:10.20 "storm020.htm" ;
00:03:06.60 "storm030.htm" ;

At 31 minutes into the show, files storm020.htm and storm030.htm will be deleted from the viewer's hard drive, but not storm010.htm, since it appears before the occurrence of Timeout. This is useful if there are certain files you want to leave on the viewer's computer after the show is over.

Conversely, if Timeout appears as one of the first statements in the list, then all subsequent transmitted files are assigned a timeout value causing them to expire 31 minutes after the show begins. In most cases, it is sufficient to specify a global timeout in this way.

The default value of Timeout can be changed to a different value at any point in the list of statements. Statements specified subsequent to the change in the value of Timeout will transmit files with the new timeout value.

Timeout can also be overridden for individual files, without changing the default timeout value, by appending the following phrase to a statement that causes the file to be transmitted:

Timeout = time ;

where time is an expression of time relative to the start of the program. For example, the following statement causes the file Test4.htm and all its dependencies to be completely transmitted by 1:20 (relative to start of program), and to be deleted after the tenth minute of the program, instead of at the default timeout time:

before 00:01:20.00 "Test4.htm" timeout 00:10:00.0;

The Timeout override applies to all files and their dependencies listed in the statement.