Coroutines

When you call a function, it runs to completion before returning. This effectively means that any action taking place in a function must happen within a single frame update; a function call can’t be used to contain a procedural animation or a sequence of events over time.

A coroutine is like a function that has the ability to pause execution and return control to Unity but then to continue where it left off on the following frame.

It is essentially a function declared with a return type of IEnumerator and with the yield return statement included somewhere in the body. The yield return null line is the point at which execution will pause and be resumed the following frame.

//coroutine
IEnumerator coroutine()
{
    // action performed
    yield return null;  // pause until next iteration

    // or

    // By default, a coroutine is resumed on the frame after it yields but it is also possible to introduce a time delay
    yield return new WaitForSeconds(seconds);  // wait seconds before resuming

    // or

    yeld return StartCoroutine(coroutine());  // wait for anothe coroitine to finish before starting
}

StartCoroutine(coroutine());  // start the coroutine
StopCoroutine(coroutine());  // stop the coroutine

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Coroutines

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