stop a thread in java after a given time - doesn't work

Question

I have a complex function (optimisation) that can potentially enter in a loop or just to take too much time, and the time allowed is set by the user.

Therefore I am tryi

Answer 1

The join method will wait the current thread until the thread that is being joined on finishes. The join with milliseconds passed in as a parameter will wait for some amount of time, if the time elapses notify the waiting thread and return.

What you can do, is after the join completes interrupt the thread you joined on. Of course this requires your thread to be responsive to thread interruption.