Timer Api For processing

import java.util.Timer;import java.util.TimerTask;public class TimerTest {		public TimerTest() {		getTimer().scheduleAtFixedRate(				new TimerTask() {					@Override					public void run() {						System.out.println("It has been 5 seconds.");					}				},		5000, 5000);	}		public static void main(String[] args) {		new TimerTest();	}		public Timer getTimer() {		return timer;	}		private Timer timer = new Timer();}

The timer will wait 5 seconds, then display the message, then continuously wait 5 seconds and display the message over and over again. I actually think this is kind of cool since I didn't know about it before.

Documentation: http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/
http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/

yup, it is cool ...

I found it useful for some tasks that require scheduling, like generating reports at regular intervals.

There are open source api(s) for scheduling like Quartz, they provide additional features like:
1. you can provide time interval in unix cron like format.
2. Persistent jobs

http://archive.oreilly.com/pub/a/java/archive/quartz.html

For J2ee applications, EJB's do not allow to create a new thread. TimerTask is a thread, so EJB's have their own way of scheduling tasks.

http://www.onjava.com/pub/a/onjava/2004/10/13/j2ee-timers.htmlhttp://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/

Yeah I have heard of Quartz however I never took the time to look into it.I usually use the Timer to process changes or repaint in my games so it's actually useful to me.