How to set a time-specific event in Flutter? - flutter

Question

I am trying to get a switch widget to turn off at a specific time of the day.
I have read a lot of the documentations like these
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/15848214/does-dart-have-a-scheduler
https://pub.dev/packages/cron
https://pub.dev/packages/scheduled_timer
All of these which can only allow me to set duration instead of a specific time.
Thus, my only approach right now is by setting up the timer when the switch is turned on.
e.g. 8hrs then it turns off.
Problem: If the user turned on the switch late, the time that it turns off will also be delayed.
So is there an actual way to set an event at a specific time + works even after we onstop/terminate the application?

Answer 1

You can try to do something like this:
I'll simplify the specific time into :
...
var setTime = DateTime.utc(2022, 7, 11, 8, 48, 0).toLocal();
StreamSubscription? subscription;
...
Then you can assign a periodic stream listener:
...
// periodic to run every second (you can change to minutes/hours/others too)
var stream = Stream.periodic(const Duration(seconds: 1), (count) {
//return true if the time now is after set time
return DateTime.now().isAfter(setTime);
});
//stream subscription
subscription = stream.listen((result) {
// if true, insert function and cancel listen subscription
if(result){
print('turn off');
subscription!.cancel();
}
// else if not yet, run this function
else {
print(result);
}
});
...
However, running a Dart code in a background process is more difficult, here are some references you can try:
https://medium.com/flutter/executing-dart-in-the-background-with-flutter-plugins-and-geofencing-2b3e40a1a124
https://pub.dev/packages/flutter_background_service
I hope it helps, feel free to comment if it doesn't work, I'll try my best to help.

Answer 2

After some time I figured it out.
Format
cron.schedule(Schedule.parse('00 00 * * *'), () async {
print("This code runs at 12am everyday")
});
More Examples
cron.schedule(Schedule.parse('15 * * * *'), () async {
print("This code runs every 15 minutes")
});
To customize a scheduler for your project, read this