--- /dev/null
+/**
+@page GRAS_tut_tour_timers Lesson 7: Using internal timers
+
+\section GRAS_tut_tour_timers_toc Table of Contents
+ - \ref GRAS_tut_tour_timers_intro
+ - \ref GRAS_tut_tour_timers_use
+ - \ref GRAS_tut_tour_timers_recap
+
+<hr>
+
+\section GRAS_tut_tour_timers_intro Introduction
+
+The messaging primitives we saw until now allow the processes to react to
+external events. This is good, but sometimes, you want the same action to be
+done periodically. Think of a system based on a group of processes. If you
+want to give some adaptability to this system, you shouldn't hardcode the
+memberships but have the members send a message to a coordinator to register
+to the system.
+
+This add some dynamism to your system since new members can join at any
+time. To have a process leaving the system, you can imagine an "unregister"
+message symetric to the "register" one. But how will you deal with failures?
+What if a process leaves without being given the ability to inform the
+coordinator?
+
+One solution is to have the members re-register periodically, so that the
+coordinator can detect the processes which didn't do so since a while, and
+dismiss them.
+
+To implement this in GRAS, we need some more functions: gras_timer_repeat()
+allows to specify a periodic action and gras_timer_delay() allows to get an
+action done once a given delay expires. gras_timer_cancel_delay() and
+gras_timer_cancel_repeat() allow to remove already declared timers. Actions
+must be function without argument nor result (<tt>void my_action(void){
+... }</tt>).
+
+It is important to note that timers are not prehemptive. They will not start
+as soon as they are ready. Instead, they get served when you go into
+gras_msg_handle() (and they are served before incoming messages). This is
+because allowing timers to run in parallel to the callbacks would add
+parallelism to the user code, which would have to protect data with mutexes.
+This is a level of complexity I really don't want for user code. If you
+really need several running entities, simply run several processes (see \ref
+GRAS_tut_intro_model for more details).
+
+\section GRAS_tut_tour_timers_use Putting timers into action
+
+We will change the client of our example so that it send an hello message
+every half second to the server. Then we will add a delayed action scheduled
+5 seconds later in charge of stopping every processes. For this to work, we
+first need to add a global to the server too, containing the socket binded
+onto the server (to send messages) and a boolean indicating whether we are
+done or not, just like we did on the server side in \ref
+GRAS_tut_tour_globals. Here is the resulting global structure:
+\dontinclude 07-timers.c
+\skip client_data
+\until client_data_t
+
+Then, we define the repetitive action in charge of sending messages to the
+server:
+
+\skip client_do_hello
+\until end_of_client_do_hello
+
+This timer is installed the following way. You simply tell the action to
+schedule and its periodicity.
+\skip gras_timer_repeat
+\until gras_timer_repeat
+
+Desinstalling this is not harder. You tell the action to unschedule, and the
+periodicity at which it was desinstalled (so that the same action can be
+scheduled at different intervals, and each of them be desinstallable
+separately).
+\dontinclude 07-timers.c
+\skip gras_timer_cancel_repeat
+\until gras_timer_cancel_repeat
+
+Then comes the delayed action in charge of stopping everything, which should
+be self-explanatory at this point. It could be cancelled before its
+expiration using gras_timer_cancel_delay(), which accepts exactly the same
+kind of arguments than gras_timer_cancel_repeat().
+\dontinclude 07-timers.c
+\skip client_do_stop
+\until end_of_client_do_stop
+
+Finally, we should change the client main function to adapt to these
+modifications, as you can see in the recapping below.
+
+\section GRAS_tut_tour_timers_recap Recapping everything together
+
+The program now reads:
+\include 07-timers.c
+
+Which produces the expected output:
+\include 07-timers.output
+
+Go to \ref GRAS_tut_tour_exceptions
+
+*/
