How to implement a timer in a XPCOM component?

Question

I'm creating a GStreamer application based on XULRunner. To achieve this created an XPCOM component that makes some of the GStreamer functionality available in a XUL application. However, GStreamer normally makes use of a message loop (GMainLoop) which enables one to receive bus messages. Because XULRunner already has its own message loop I can't create a GMainLoop. So I need another way of getting those messages. One way is to use the gst_bus_poll call. I would need to call it frequently to prevent the message queue from being flooded. So I'm thinking that a timer is the correct solution here.

To make a long story short: how do I create a timer in an XPCOM component?

Answer 1

Take a look at nsITimer.

And you might be interested in the code in this bug about implementing a GStreamer backend for <video>.