CODEWITHSUNDEEP
javaandroid
JDS
JDS

Reputation: 16978

Android - run a function every X milliseconds while condition true?

I just want to run a function myFunction() every X milliseconds while an external flag is true. However I've had no luck with Threads (app crashes), Timers (app crashes). Handlers/runnables are a bit better but typically I'll have something like: 

Runnable rr = new Runnable() {
                public void run() {
                    if (flag1 == true) {
                        myFunction();
                    } else {
                        return; 
                    }
                }
            }; 
            handler.postDelayed(rr, 1000);

But then the problem is execution will come one after another after 1000 milliseconds. I want one execution of myFunction to happen, wait 1000ms, call myFunction, wait 1000ms, call myFunction, etc, until flag1 becomes false.

I've been stuck on this for a while, so any help is much appreciated.

EDIT - more question info

The handler is defined as follows:

private Handler handler = new Handler();

And its class is a BroadcastReceiver where I'm trying to listen for flag changes based on asynchronous events from external hardware.

Upvotes: 3

Views: 7161

Answers (1)

Chris Lucian
Chris Lucian

Reputation: 1013

This will loop and check the flag every second for the lifetime of the application. 

Thread myThread = new Thread(new UpdateThread());`
myThread.start();`

public class UpdateThread implements Runnable {

    @Override
    public void run() {
            while(true)
    {
        if (flag1 == true) 
                        myFunction();   
        myThread.sleep(1000);
    }

}

also you may want to look at a service

http://developer.android.com/reference/android/app/Service.html

Upvotes: 1

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