Wednesday, 6 February 2019

How to create a new timer whose associated thread has the specified name and may be run as a daemon

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Naming Your Timer Thread and Using Daemon Mode

When working with background tasks in Java, the Timer class is a go-to tool. However, by default, timer threads have generic names, and they might keep your application running even after the main work is done. In this tutorial, we explore how to customize your Timer for better debugging and lifecycle management.

1. Why Name Your Threads?

In a complex application with many background processes, seeing "Thread-0" or "Timer-1" in your logs makes troubleshooting very difficult. By giving your Timer a custom name, you can easily identify exactly which task is running or causing issues in your thread dumps.

2. Understanding Daemon Mode

A Daemon Thread is a low-priority thread that runs in the background. The most important thing to remember is:

The Java Virtual Machine (JVM) will exit even if daemon threads are still running, provided all non-daemon threads have finished.

Setting your Timer to daemon mode is perfect for tasks that shouldn't prevent your program from shutting down, like clearing a temporary cache or updating a UI clock.

3. How to Implement It

Java provides a specific constructor in the Timer class to handle both the thread name and the daemon status at once:

        Timer timer = new Timer("MyCustomTimerName", true);
    

First Argument: The name you want for the thread.
Second Argument: A boolean (true/false) to set daemon mode.

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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.Date;

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, and may be specified to run as a daemon.
         * 
         * Parameters:
         * 
         * name - the name of the associated thread
         * 
         * isDaemon - true if the associated thread should run as a
         * daemon
         * 
         */

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

        TimerTask reminderTimerTask = new ReminderTimerTask();

        timer.schedule(reminderTimerTask, new Date());

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

    }

}

Output:

Wake up...

Timer has schedule the reminderTimerTask...

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

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

Bitbucket Link:
https://bitbucket.org/ramram43210/java_spring_2019/src/1ebed8b1986b12a20c2bf9302a0adc45079f1aad/Java_2019/TimerDemo_name_isDaemon/?at=master

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