Creating a timer using Lua

If milisecond accuracy is not needed, you could just go for a coroutine solution, which you resume periodically, like at the end of your main loop, Like this:

require 'socket' -- for having a sleep function ( could also use os.execute(sleep 10))
timer = function (time)
    local init = os.time()
    local diff=os.difftime(os.time(),init)
    while diff<time do
        coroutine.yield(diff)
        diff=os.difftime(os.time(),init)
    end
    print( 'Timer timed out at '..time..' seconds!')
end
co=coroutine.create(timer)
coroutine.resume(co,30) -- timer starts here!
while coroutine.status(co)~="dead" do
    print("time passed",select(2,coroutine.resume(co)))
    print('',coroutine.status(co))
    socket.sleep(5)
end

This uses the sleep function in LuaSocket, you could use any other of the alternatives suggested on the Lua-users Wiki

If it's acceptable for you, you can try LuaNode. The following code sets a timer:

setInterval(function()
    console.log("I run once a minute")
end, 60000)
process:loop()

After reading this thread and others I decided to go with Luv lib. Here is my solution:

uv = require('luv') --luarocks install luv

function set_timeout(timeout, callback)
  local timer = uv.new_timer()
  local function ontimeout()
    uv.timer_stop(timer)
    uv.close(timer)
    callback()
  end
  uv.timer_start(timer, timeout, 0, ontimeout)
  return timer
end


set_timeout(1000, function() print('ok') end) -- time in ms

uv.run() --it will hold at this point until every timer have finished

use Script.SetTimer(interval, callbackFunction)

On my Debian I've install lua-lgi packet to get access to the GObject based libraries.

The following code show you an usage demonstrating that you can use few asynchronuous callbacks:

local lgi = require 'lgi'
local GLib = lgi.GLib

-- Get the main loop object that handles all the events
local main_loop = GLib.MainLoop()

cnt = 0
function tictac()
     cnt = cnt + 1
     print("tic")
     -- This callback will be called until the condition is true
     return cnt < 10
end

-- Call tictac function every 2 senconds
GLib.timeout_add_seconds(GLib.PRIORITY_DEFAULT, 2, tictac)

-- You can also use an anonymous function like that
GLib.timeout_add_seconds(GLib.PRIORITY_DEFAULT, 1,
                         function()
                            print( "There have been ", cnt, "tic")
                            -- This callback will never stop
                            return true
                         end)

-- Once everything is setup, you can start the main loop
main_loop:run()

-- Next instructions will be still interpreted
print("Main loop is running")

You can find more documentation about LGI here