Hi freakingwildchild,

Have you considered using a closure for this?  It sounds like you want the value to not change for at least 10 minutes after the first time you create the value; if that's the case, I'd suggest something like:

#!/usr/bin/perl -w

# Strict
use strict;
use warnings;

# Test code
my $psub = same_value_for_time_period(5);
while (1) {
    my $x = $psub->();
    printf "Value is %s\n", $x;
    sleep 1;
}

# Subroutines
sub same_value_for_time_period {
    my ($duration) = @_;            # Eg. 600 = 10 minutes
    my $start_time = time;
    my $value = get_new_value();
    sub {
        my $now = time;
        if ($now - $start_time < $duration) {
            return $value;
        } else {
            $start_time = $now;
            $value = get_new_value();
        }
    }
}

sub get_new_value {
    my $value;

    # Your code for creating a new value here ...
    $value = rand 1000;

    return $value;
}
[download]

Here, you call the subroutine same_value_for_time_period with a duration (the number of seconds you wish the value to remain constant for).  It returns a pointer to a closure; a subroutine which, each time you call it after it's first created, gives you the same value within the specified duration, and then changes after that.  The subroutine get_new_value is called when the duration is up, to give a new value.  As you can see, I've tested it for a short duration (5 seconds), and just using a random number whenever the value changes.

Is that the kind of thing you're looking for?

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