How to run a Runnable thread in Android at defined intervals?

Question

I developed an application to display some text at defined intervals in the Android emulator screen. I am using the Handler class. Here is a snippet from my cod

Answer 1

I believe for this typical case, i.e. to run something with a fixed interval, Timer is more appropriate. Here is a simple example:

myTimer = new Timer();
myTimer.schedule(new TimerTask() {          
@Override
public void run() {
    // If you want to modify a view in your Activity
    MyActivity.this.runOnUiThread(new Runnable()
        public void run(){
            tv.append("Hello World");
        });
    }
}, 1000, 1000); // initial delay 1 second, interval 1 second

Using Timer has few advantages:

• Initial delay and the interval can be easily specified in the schedule function arguments
• The timer can be stopped by simply calling myTimer.cancel()
• If you want to have only one thread running, remember to call myTimer.cancel() before scheduling a new one (if myTimer is not null)