How do I run background processes?

[SuperSamir 0]

I have a loop going on in my program that updates data to be displayed. Alongside this loop, I would like to run event.listen("touch"). However, it is either that event.listen never occurs due to it being after the loop, or event.listen interrupting the loop.

[Molinko 43]

If event.listen is after a continuous loop then it wont be called until that block is finished. To use event.listen it should be called before the loop starts. Note: the loop will have to yield somehow via either event.pull or os.sleep or computer.pullSignal.

while (some_condition) do
  doSomething(data)
  os.sleep(5)
  doSomethingElse(more, data)
end

event.listen('some_event', listener) -- # this will not run until `some_condition` above returns false or there is an error

event.listen('some_event', listener)

while (some_condition) do
  doSomething(data)
  os.sleep(5)
  -- # if an event named `some_event` happens during this sleep call above then the listener will execute
  doSomethingElse(more, data)
end

background stuff..

local thread = require 'thread'
local event = require 'event'

local bg_proc = thread.create(function()
    print 'starting background thread..'
    while true do
      local ev = event.pull 'key'
      print 'somebody pressed something!'
    end
  end)

print 'starting main loop'
local i = 0
while true do
  i = i + 1
  print('count is ' .. tostring(i))
  os.sleep(1)
end