The TimeUnit Enumeration
The concurrent API uses TimeUnit to indicate a time-out period. TimeUnit is an enumeration that is used to specify the granularity of the timing. TimeUnit is defined within java.util.concurrent.
It can be one of the following values:
- DAYS
- HOURS
- MINUTES
- SECONDS
- MICROSECONDS
- MILLISECONDS
- NANOSECONDS
The TimeUnit enumeration defines various methods that convert between units.
These are shown here:
long convert(long tval, TimeUnit tu)
long toMicros(long tval)
long toMillis(long tval)
long toNanos(long tval)
long toSeconds(long tval)
long toDays(long tval)
long toHours(long tval)
long toMinutes(long tval)
The convert( ) method converts tval into the specified unit and returns the result. The to methods perform the indicated conversion and return the result.
TimeUnit also defines the following timing methods:
void sleep(long delay) throws InterruptedExecution- sleep( ) pauses execution for the specified delay period. It translates into a call to Thread.sleep( ).
void timedJoin(Thread thrd, long delay) throws InterruptedExecution- similar with Thread.join( ) in which pauses for the time period specified by delay, which is described in terms of the invoking time unit.
void timedWait(Object obj, long delay) throws InterruptedExecution- a specialized version of Object.wait( ) in which obj is waited on for the period of time specified by delay, which is described in terms of the invoking time unit.