How to tell a contract when to do an action based on time and blocks?

Question

I have a simple contract that receives any amount of ETH. The contract keeps those ETH certain amount of time until it realeases the funds to it's original owner.

I have defined which block represents the moment of release.

The only thing that I don't know how to do is, how to tell the contract: "now we are in the specified block, release those ETH".

I mean, the contract is not reading the blockchain continuously, which is the way to tell that info to the contract automatically?

Answer 1

A contract cannot execute itself at a later time, see How can a contract run itself at a later time?.

A common workaround is to use a "withdraw" pattern. You do not credit the value at a given block, but only the interested party has to ask for it.

address constant creditor = 0x123412341234...;
uint constant creditBlock = 4000000; 
uint constant creditAmount = 1 wei;

function withdraw() public {
    // Ensure only "creditor" can call the function
    // and after a target block number has been mined
    if (msg.sender == creditor && block.number >= creditBlock) {
        msg.sender.transfer(creditAmount);
    }
}

Answer 2

You could use any of the services available to schedule executions of functions. You can use:

Ethereum Clock Alarm.
Oraclize
Chronos

Disclaimer: I wrote the Chronos code and it is available only on Rinkeby for now, so you can use it for testing. The advantage is that it is really simple to use.