Worker Thread in Java

Question

I need to read the data from a table every minute through thread & then perform certain action.

Should I just start a thread & put it in sleep mode for 1 minute

Answer 1

As so often, the Java 5 extensions from the java.util.concurrent package are a huge help here.

You should use the ScheduledThreadPoolExecutor. Here is a small (untestet) example:

class ToSomethingRunnable implements Runnable {
    void run() {
        // Add your customized code here to update the contents in the database.
    }
}

ScheduledThreadPoolExecutor executor = Executors.newScheduledThreadPool(1);
ScheduledFuture future = executor.scheduleAtFixedRate(new ToSomethingRunnable(), 
     0, 1, TimeUnit.MINUTES); 

// at some point at the end
future.cancel();
executor.shutdown();

Update:

A benefit of using an Executor is you can add many repeating tasks of various intervals all sharing the same threadpool an the simple, but controlled shutdown.