Checking if a Java Timer is cancelled

java timer cancellation
Simon Forsberg picture Simon Forsberg · Dec 14, 2012 · Viewed 7.9k times · Source

Why is there no isCancelled method for a java.util.Timer object?

I would like to schedule a task if the Timer has not been cancelled, and run it directly (on the same thread) if it has been cancelled.

Is the only option to catch the IllegalStateException that might occur if the Timer already has been cancelled? (It feels wrong to catch an IllegalStateException).

Answer

Marko Topolnik picture Marko Topolnik · Dec 14, 2012

How sure are you that you want to use Timer? Use ExecutorService instead, which has isShutdown and has a slew of other benefits to boot. A general recommendation as of Java 5 has been to replace Timers with ExecutorServices.

There's a ScheduledExecutorService interface specifically for scheduled executor services. Instantiate using one of the Executors.new... methods.

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