multithreading - Running a Java Thread in intervals

Question

I have a thread that needs to be executed every 10 seconds. This thread contains several calls (12 - 15) to a database on another server. Additionally, it also accesses around 3 files. Consequently, there will be quite a lot of IO and network overhead.

What is the best strategy to perform the above?

One way would be to use the sleep method along with a while loop, but that would be a bad design.

Will a class similar to Timer be helpful in this case? Also, would it be better to create a couple of more threads (one for IO and one for JDBC), instead of having them run in one thread?

Answer 1

I find that a ScheduledExecutorService is an excellent way to do this. It is arguably slightly more complex than a Timer, but gives more flexibility in exchange (e.g. you could choose to use a single thread or a thread pool; it takes units other than solely milliseconds).

ScheduledExecutorService executor =
    Executors.newSingleThreadScheduledExecutor();

Runnable periodicTask = new Runnable() {
    public void run() {
        // Invoke method(s) to do the work
        doPeriodicWork();
    }
};

executor.scheduleAtFixedRate(periodicTask, 0, 10, TimeUnit.SECONDS);