How to set a timer in java

Question

How to set a Timer say for 2 minutes to try to connect to a database and then exception out if there is any issue in connecting

Answer 1

First you need to create a Timer:

Timer timer = new Timer();

To run the task once would would do:

timer.schedule(new TimerTask() {
  @Override
  public void run() {
    // Your database code here
  }
}, 2*60*1000);

To have the task repeat after the duration you would do:

timer.scheduleAtFixedRate(new TimerTask() {
  @Override
  public void run() {
    // Your database code here
  }
}, 2*60*1000, 2*60*1000);

Answer 2

Ok, I think I understand your problem now. You can use a Future to try to do something and then timeout after a bit of nothing has happened.

E.g.:

FutureTask<Void> task = new FutureTask<Void>(new Callable<Void>() {
  @Override
  public Void call() throws Exception {
    // Do DB stuff
    return null;
  }
});

Executor executor = Executors.newSingleThreadScheduledExecutor();
executor.execute(task);

try {
  task.get(5, TimeUnit.SECONDS);
}
catch(Exception ex) {
  // Handle your exception
}