How do I make a delay in Java?

Question

I am trying to do something in Java and I need something to wait / delay for an amount of seconds in a while loop.

while (true) {
    if (i == 3) {
        i = 0;
    }

    ceva[i].setSelected(true);

    // I need to wait here

    ceva[i].setSelected(false);

    // I need to wait here

    i++;
}

I want to build a step sequencer.

How do I make a delay in Java?

Answer 1

If you want to pause then use java.util.concurrent.TimeUnit:

TimeUnit.SECONDS.sleep(1);

To sleep for one second or

TimeUnit.MINUTES.sleep(1);

To sleep for a minute.

As this is a loop, this presents an inherent problem - drift. Every time you run code and then sleep you will be drifting a little bit from running, say, every second. If this is an issue then don't use sleep.

Further, sleep isn't very flexible when it comes to control.

For running a task every second or at a one second delay I would strongly recommend a ScheduledExecutorService and either scheduleAtFixedRate or scheduleWithFixedDelay.

For example, to run the method myTask every second (Java 8):

public static void main(String[] args) {
    final ScheduledExecutorService executorService = Executors.newSingleThreadScheduledExecutor();
    executorService.scheduleAtFixedRate(App::myTask, 0, 1, TimeUnit.SECONDS);
}

private static void myTask() {
    System.out.println("Running");
}

And in Java 7:

public static void main(String[] args) {
    final ScheduledExecutorService executorService = Executors.newSingleThreadScheduledExecutor();
    executorService.scheduleAtFixedRate(new Runnable() {
        @Override
        public void run() {
            myTask();
        }
    }, 0, 1, TimeUnit.SECONDS);
}

private static void myTask() {
    System.out.println("Running");
}

Answer 2

Use Thread.sleep(1000);

1000 is the number of milliseconds that the program will pause.

try {
  Thread.sleep(1000);
} catch (InterruptedException e) {
  Thread.currentThread().interrupt();
}

Answer 3

Use this:

public static void wait(int ms)
{
    try
    {
        Thread.sleep(ms);
    }
    catch(InterruptedException ex)
    {
        Thread.currentThread().interrupt();
    }
}

and, then you can call this method anywhere like:

wait(1000);

Answer 4

You need to use the Thread.sleep() call.

More info here: http://docs.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/essential/concurrency/sleep.html

Answer 5

Use Thread.sleep(100);. The unit of time is milliseconds

For example:

public class SleepMessages {
    public static void main(String args[])
        throws InterruptedException {
        String importantInfo[] = {
            "Mares eat oats",
            "Does eat oats",
            "Little lambs eat ivy",
            "A kid will eat ivy too"
        };

        for (int i = 0;
             i < importantInfo.length;
             i++) {
            //Pause for 4 seconds
            Thread.sleep(4000);
            //Print a message
            System.out.println(importantInfo[i]);
        }
    }
}

Answer 6

Using TimeUnit.SECONDS.sleep(1); or Thread.sleep(1000); Is acceptable way to do it. In both cases you have to catch InterruptedExceptionwhich makes your code Bulky.There is an Open Source java library called MgntUtils (written by me) that provides utility that already deals with InterruptedException inside. So your code would just include one line:

TimeUtils.sleepFor(1, TimeUnit.SECONDS);

See the javadoc here. You can access library from Maven Central or from Github. The article explaining about the library could be found here

Answer 7

There is also one more way to wait.

You can use LockSupport methods, e.g.:

LockSupport.parkNanos(1_000_000_000); // Disables current thread for scheduling at most for 1 second

Fortunately they don't throw any checked exception. But on the other hand according to the documentation there are more reasons for thread to be enabled:

• Some other thread invokes unpark with the current thread as the target
• Some other thread interrupts the current thread

Answer 8

I know this is a very old post but this may help someone: You can create a method, so whenever you need to pause you can type pause(1000) or any other millisecond value:

public static void pause(int ms) {
    try {
        Thread.sleep(ms);
    } catch (InterruptedException e) {
        System.err.format("InterruptedException : %s%n", e);
    }
}

This is inserted just above the public static void main(String[] args), inside the class. Then, to call on the method, type pause(ms) but replace ms with the number of milliseconds to pause. That way, you don't have to insert the entire try-catch statement whenever you want to pause.