prevent sleep_for from blocking background thread - c++

Question

I'm writing in pure c++11 and want to do a simple 'wait x seconds and turn on a member variable' after turning it off. The member variable of the class in this example is a flag for 'animating'.
cout << "stop animating!" << endl;
this->animating = false;
async(launch::async, [this] ()
{
this_thread::sleep_for(chrono::seconds{8});
this->animating = true;
std::cout << "start animating!" << std::endl;
});
cout << "i'm here" << endl;
the this_thread::sleep_for blocks the entire program from continuing on (even though it is inside an async thread). because i dont see "I'm here" 8 seconds later. If the above code worked as intended, i would see "I'm here" immediately after "stop animating". This blocking is a problem for me because it locks up everything I care about like continuing to process 'input' like keyboard events, and the program also stops 'drawing' other objects on the screen.
Does anyone know how to achieve a simple delayed and async change of a member variable using standard c++11 (no frameworks like boost please)
in iOS it is very simple:
// Delay execution of my block for 10 seconds.
dispatch_after(dispatch_time(DISPATCH_TIME_NOW, 10 * NSEC_PER_SEC),
dispatch_get_main_queue(), ^
{
//do whatever, 10 seconds later
});

Answer 1

As per #user2176127 's comment - have you tried this? :
cout << "stop animating!" << endl;
this->animating = false;
std::thread delay_thread(
[this]() {
this_thread::sleep_for(chrono::seconds{8});
this->animating = true;
std::cout << "start animating!" << std::endl;
}
);
delay_thread.detach();
std::cout << "I'm here" << std::endl;
Also note you likely need to wrap the animating member in an std::atomic<>, i.e. if it was bool it now becomes an std::atomic<bool>, so as to ensure your main thread notices the change when it actually happens. (Using volatile won't help.)