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 code:

handler = new Handler();
Runnable r = new Runnable() {
    public void run() {
        tv.append("Hello World");               
    }
};
handler.postDelayed(r, 1000);

When I run this application the text is displayed only once. Why?

Answer 1

The simple fix to your example is :

handler = new Handler();

final Runnable r = new Runnable() {
    public void run() {
        tv.append("Hello World");
        handler.postDelayed(this, 1000);
    }
};

handler.postDelayed(r, 1000);

Or we can use normal thread for example (with original Runner) :

Thread thread = new Thread() {
    @Override
    public void run() {
        try {
            while(true) {
                sleep(1000);
                handler.post(this);
            }
        } catch (InterruptedException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        }
    }
};

thread.start();

You may consider your runnable object just as a command that can be sent to the message queue for execution, and handler as just a helper object used to send that command.

More details are here http://developer.android.com/reference/android/os/Handler.html