Wednesday, 6 February 2019

How to create a new timer whose associated thread has the specified name

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Introduction to Naming Your Timer Thread

In Java, when you use the Timer class to schedule background tasks, a separate thread is created to handle those tasks. By default, Java gives these threads generic names like "Timer-0". While this works fine for execution, it makes debugging a nightmare!

Why Should You Use a Custom Thread Name?

Imagine you have five different timers running in your application. If one of them crashes or causes a performance bottleneck, your logs will just show "Timer-1". Which one is that?

Easier Debugging: Identify exactly which background task is running.
Better Logging: Custom names appear in your console and log files.
Professional Code: It's a best practice in multi-threaded programming.

How to Set the Name (Simple Code)

The Timer class provides a specific constructor that allows you to pass a String as the name of the thread. Here is how you can do it:

        Timer myTimer = new Timer("MyEmailSchedulerThread");
    

Now, whenever this timer executes a TimerTask, the thread handling it will be clearly labeled as "MyEmailSchedulerThread".

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ReminderTimerTask.java

import java.util.TimerTask;

public class ReminderTimerTask extends TimerTask

{

    public void run()

    {

        System.out.println("Wake up...");

    }

}

TimerDemo.java

import java.util.Timer;

import java.util.TimerTask;

public class TimerDemo

{

    public static void main(String[] args) throws InterruptedException

    {

        /*
         * 
         * Creates a new timer whose associated thread has the
         * specified name. The associated thread does not run as a
         * daemon.
         * 
         * Parameters:
         * 
         * name - the name of the associated thread
         */

        Timer timer = new Timer("Reminder Timer");

        TimerTask reminderTimerTask = new ReminderTimerTask();

        timer.schedule(reminderTimerTask, 5000, 2000);

        System.out.println("Timer has schedule the reminderTimerTask...");

    }

}

Output:

Timer has schedule the reminderTimerTask...

Wake up...

Wake up...

Wake up...

Wake up...

Wake up...

Wake up...

Wake up...

Click the below link to download the code:
https://sites.google.com/site/javaspringram2019/java_spring_2019/TimerDemo_thread_name.zip?attredirects=0&d=1

Github Link:
https://github.com/ramram43210/Java_Spring_2019/tree/master/Java_2019/TimerDemo_thread_name

Bitbucket Link:
https://bitbucket.org/ramram43210/java_spring_2019/src/2db5cd1f4e7d5ab55ad7af886d6164700143c614/Java_2019/TimerDemo_thread_name/?at=master

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