Android Editable CountDownTimer Issue - java

I'm trying to implement a CountDownTimer in the .java of an Android app's activity. This CountDownTimer needs to be able to count down from several different pre-set timings that is specified by the user's selection, that which I have solved by using sharedPreferences().
In order to connect the sharedPreferences and the CountDownTimer's timing, below are two method's I've tried that do not work:
1) getInt from the sharedPreferences and then defining an string array and substituting long milliseconds (for the CountDownTimer) with a long value from the array by using array[int] and thereafter valueof() to that obtained string.
2) By using {if(sharedPreferences == 123) {int timing = 5000;}}, but this fails due to the braces that contain the value of int timing such that CountDownTimer cannot read it as it lies outside of that pair of braces that contain the if. Worth mentioning is that it is not possible to move the CountDownTimer into the braces.
Quite simply, I'm looking for a solution to an editable CountDownTimer. While I'm not asking for a whole tutorial right here on Stackoverflow, it would be nice if you could point me in the right direction.

I don't really understand why your approaches don't work because I'm having a problem picturing your code. In general, if you declare int timing = 0; inside an if-clause it will only be available within this if-clause. So, to make it available on the outside you also need to declare it there.
I'd start with something like this:
int timing = 0;
switch (sharedPreferences) {
case 123:
timing = 5000;
case 124:
timing = 10000;
case 125:
timing = 15000;
...
default:
timing = 20000;
}
startMyCountdown(timing);

Related

Implementing a delay without thread usage

I'm working on a little project where I want to implement a little delay in a loop, but I don't want to use a thread or use another class. Is this possible?
My code looks like this:
int random = (int)(Math.random()*15);
int randomloop;
for (i = 0; i < random; i++){
randomloop = (int)(Math.random()*15);
nummerlabel.setText(String.valueOf(randomloop)); //showing a number
//here i would like to implement a little delay, so the number changes every 0.5 seconds
}
Seeing as you are already using Math and String I am assuming you are not opposed to using the standard library and you simply want to avoid creating a new thread. In that case, use Thread.sleep(...).

Run code every X seconds (Java)

This is not super necessary, I am just curious to see what others think. I know it is useless, it's just for fun.
Now I know how to do this, it's fairly simple. I am just trying to figure out a way to do this differently that doesn't require new variables to be created crowding up my class.
Here's how I would do it:
float timePassed = 0f;
public void update(){
timePassed += deltatime;//Deltatime is just a variable that represents the time passed from one update to another in seconds (it is a float)
if(timePassed >= 5){
//code to be ran every 5 seconds
timePassed -= 5f;
}
}
What I want to know is if there is a way to do this without the time passed variable. I have a statetime (time since loop started) variable that I use for other things that could be used for this.
If the goal really is to run code every X seconds, my first choice would be to use a util.Timer. Another option is to use a ScheduledExecutorService which adds a couple enhancements over the util.Timer (better Exception handling, for one).
I tend to avoid the Swing.Timer, as I prefer to leave the EDT (event dispatch thread) uncluttered.
Many people write a "game loop" which is closer to what you have started. A search on "game loop" will probably get you several variants, depending on whether you wish to keep a steady rate or not.
Sometimes, in situations where one doesn't want to continually test and reset, one can combine the two functions via the use of an "AND" operation. For example, if you AND 63 to an integer, you have the range 0-63 to iterate through. This works well on ranges that are a power of 2.
Depending on the structure of your calling code, you might pass in the "statetime" variable as a parameter and test if it is larger than your desired X. If you did this, I assume that a step in the called code will reset "statetime" to zero.
Another idea is to pass in a "startTime" to the update method. Then, your timer will test the difference between currentTimeMillis and startTime to see if X seconds has elapsed or not. Again, the code you call should probably set a new "startTime" as part of the process. The nice thing about this method is that there is no need to increment elapsed time.
As long as I am churning out ideas: could also create a future "targetTime" variable and test if currentTimeMillis() - targetTime > 0.
startTime or targetTime can be immutable, which often provides a slight plus, depending on how they are used.

checking a value for reset value before resetting it - performance impact?

I have a variable that gets read and updated thousands of times a second. It needs to be reset regularly. But "half" the time, the value is already the reset value. Is it a good idea to check the value first (to see if it needs resetting) before resetting (a write operaion), or I should just reset it regardless? The main goal is to optimize the code for performance.
To illustrate:
Random r = new Random();
int val = Integer.MAX_VALUE;
for (int i=0; i<100000000; i++) {
if (i % 2 == 0)
val = Integer.MAX_VALUE;
else
val = r.nextInt();
if (val != Integer.MAX_VALUE) //skip check?
val = Integer.MAX_VALUE;
}
I tried to use the above program to test the 2 scenarios (by un/commenting the 2nd "if" line), but any difference is masked by the natural variance of the run duration time.
Thanks.
Don't check it.
It's more execution steps = more cycles = more time.
As an aside, you are breaking one of the basic software golden rules: "Don't optimise early". Unless you have hard evidence that this piece if code is a performance problem, you shouldn't be looking at it. (Note that doesn't mean you code without performance in mind, you still follow normal best practice, but you don't add any special code whose only purpose is "performance related")
The check has no actual performance impact. We'd be talking about a single clock cycle or something, which is usually not relevant in a Java program (as hard-core number crunching usually isn't done in Java).
Instead, base the decision on readability. Think of the maintainer who's going to change this piece of code five years on.
In the case of your example, using my rationale, I would skip the check.
Most likely the JIT will optimise the code away because it doesn't do anything.
Rather than worrying about performance, it is usually better to worry about what it
simpler to understand
cleaner to implement
In both cases, you might remove the code as it doesn't do anything useful and it could make the code faster as well.
Even if it did make the code a little slower it would be very small compared to the cost of calling r.nextInt() which is not cheap.

Pausing a for loop in java

Is there a way to pause a for loop in java? So is there a way to only go forward one iteration when prompted? I read this http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20100212201605AAazS73 and the solution seems like it could have some problems mostly because I don't fully understand the order the for loop checks its header. The only method I could think of that could accomplish something similar is the following
do {
if (FLAG) {
//Do procedure
i++;
FLAG = false;
}
} while ( i < 6);
When the flag is true the procedure is done and the counter moves forward one. I don't like this, though, because it will keep looping as long as the counter is below 6, if I am not mistaken. Any ideas?
-Sorry for the lack of clarity. The FLAG in my case would be a static boolean that could be called from another class. The procedure I allude to is dependent on i.
When iterating through a for loop, for example, the one below, it does the following
for (int i = 0; i < 6; i++) {
// Do stuff
}
It declares the variable i and assigns a value of 0.
It checks the conditional i < 6. If true, then proceed to step 3. Otherwise go to step 6.
Goes through the body of the loop.
Increment the variable i due to the i++ in the for loop header.
Go to step 2.
The loop ends.
As for your objective, I'm not sure what your objective is. Are you looking to pause using a blocking method call? If so, then something like this would work:
for (int i = 0; i < 6; i++) {
System.in.readLine();
}
Alternatively, you could use some sort of flag that polls to check whether the loop should proceed, such as:
for (int i = 0; i < 6; i++) {
while (paused) {
// An infinite loop that keeps on going until the pause flag is set to false
}
}
Hope this helped.
It's not clear what sort of "prompt" you mean. You could certainly do something like:
for (int i = 0; i < 6; i++) {
System.out.println("Press return to continue...");
System.in.readLine();
// Do the body of the loop
}
That's appropriate for a console app, but obviously not for (say) a Swing app. It also doesn't address the FLAG part of your sample code, because it's not clear what that's meant to mean. Are you trying to prompt the user for more information, or just confirmation to continue? If you could clarify what you're trying to achieve, that would really help.
For the sake of testability, if this is for non-throwaway code you may want to extract the idea of a user prompt, so you can test with an implementation which doesn't actually prompt the user, but just records that it would have done so.
This would involve blocking the Thread that the for loop occupies.
You can do this simply, but not very well, with this:
for(something)
while(!FLAG)
//Do procedure
Another way would be to have another Thread going on, and have the main thread wait for that other thread.
Here's some more information: How to make a Java thread wait for another thread's output?
Your goal is somewhat unclear. I think you want your program to keep running until you get six of a certain input and if so, that approach will work, though of course you'll need to get input from the user to move the loop forward.
If your concern is that the while loop would use a lot of system resources, that will not be a problem.
Well, you could use Thread.Sleep(); to pause for a little bit between flag checks, but what you are really looking for is a function that blocks while waiting for input, System.in.readline(); blocks if I recall correctly ;) Like so:
int i = 0
do
{
if(FLAG)
{
//Do stuff
i++;
//Clear Flag
}
Thread.Sleep(50); //Sleep for 50 ms
} while (i < 6);
or like so:
for(int i = 0; i < 6; i++) //Execute readline 6 times.
{
System.in.readLine();
}
Others have covered how to use System.in.readLine() to have the program explicitly require action from the user.
If what you need is not to have the program wait for the user, but allow you - the programmer - to slow the program down, in order to be able to find and fix a bug, you might want to consider using a debugger as this is exactly what it is designed for.
Any modern Java IDE has a debugger. The keys chosen to use it, just varies.
If you are using Eclipse, you are using either F11 or Ctrl-F11 (assuming Windows) to run your program. The difference is that F11 starts your program inside a debugger and Ctrl-F11 doesn't.
Put the cursor at the first line inside the for-loop, and choose Run->Toggle Breakpoint. A blue bullet will show to the left of the line. This indicates that the breakpoint is active - the debugger will now stop your program every time it reaches that line.
Now run your program in the debugger with F11. The program stops at the line, and you can investigate your variables in the Variables pane as needed, and continue execution with F8 whenever you are ready.

java for loop executes too fast gives System.currentTimeMillis() duplicate

Java: I have a problem using System.currentTimeMillis() function
i am using System.currentTimeMillis() to generate unique values in foor loop problem is loop executes too fast and System.currentTimeMillis() gives me duplicate values.
How can i generate for sure unique values.
for(int a=0;a<=10;a++){
System.out.println(System.currentTimeMillis())
}
I also tried following but it is also not generaet to generate unique number
System.currentTimeMillis()+Math.random()
why don't you use System.nanoTime() instead?
Why don't you use a UUID library to generate unique identifiers (already there in the JDK http://download.oracle.com/javase/6/docs/api/java/util/UUID.html).
Or for a more simple approach: append a static counter
I think your approach is wrong, if this is a requirement.
Theoretically, no matter how fine-grained your timer, a machine might execute it in less time than the timer's granularity. It's not correct in a technical sense to depend on this being true.
Or looking at it another way - why do you need these values to be unique (what are you using them for)? If you really want them to be a measure of the time it was executed, then you ought to be happy that two iterations that happened within the same millisecond got the same value.
Have you considered using a static, monotonous counter to assign IDs to each iteration that are unique within each execution (AtomicLong is great for this)? Something like the following is very easy and has no concurrency issues:
public class YourClass {
private static final AtomicLong COUNTER = new AtomicLong();
private static nextId() { return COUNTER.getAndIncrement(); }
// Rest of the class, which calls nextId() when it needs an identifier
}
If you need the timing info and uniqueness, then that's two separate requirements, so why not have a composite key made up of the time and an arbitrary unique ID?
The answer is obvious - get a slower computer! Well, that or use System.nanoTime as described right here on SO - System.currentTimeMillis vs System.nanoTime. But seriously, you shouldn't be using time as unique number generator unless you absolutely have to.
The problem with using the system time of course being that:
The time returned by your system
calls is rounded up to a higher
degree of precision than the actual
CPU clock time. If your ID generation
code runs faster than this degree of
precision then you will have
collision.
If your code is distributed and each
unit of work is generating ID's then
you run into the possibility of ID
collision as the separate CPU's or
CPU core's allocate ID's using their
independent clocks.
In libraries like Java that are
actually returning the system time
based off a user settable property
you run into a higher chance of
multiple ID collision anytime the
date is reset to some period in the
past, for whatever reason.
A very good alternative to generating unique identifiers is to utilize the not-so-ironically named Universally Unique Identifier. There is a multiple implementations in various languages, for Java 5 and higher you can use the UUID class.
Edit: To add some useful information about UUID.
Similar to #Andrej's solution, but combining a timer and a counter so your numbers shouldn't repeat if you restart your application.
public enum IdGenerator {
;
private static final AtomicLong COUNTER = new AtomicLong(System.currentTimeMillis()*1000);
public static long nextId() { return COUNTER.getAndIncrement(); }
}
If you want to still use your method, you could do:
for(int a=0;a<=10;a++){
Thread.sleep(1);
System.out.println(System.currentTimeMillis())
}
Explicitly making your CPU slower.
try Math.random()*System.currentTimeMillis()
here is a sample outcome
4.1140390961236145E11,
4.405289623285403E11,
6.743938910583776E11,
2.0358542930175632E11,
1.2561886548511025E12,
8.629388909268735E11,
1.158038719369676E12,
2.5899667030405692E11,
7.815373208372445E11,
1.0887553507952611E12,
3.947241572203385E11,
1.6723200316764807E11,
1.3071550541162832E12,
2.079941126415029E11,
1.304485187296599E12,
3.5889095083604164E10,
1.3230275106525027E11,
6.484641777434403E11,
5.109822261418748E11,
1.2291750972884333E12,
8.972865957307518E11,
4.022754883048088E11,
7.997154244301389E11,
1.139245696210086E12,
2.633248409945871E11,
8.699957189419155E11,
9.487098785390422E11,
1.1645067228773708E12,
1.5274939161218903E11,
4.8470112347655725E11,
8.749120668472205E11,
2.435762445513599E11,
5.62884487469596E11,
1.1412787212758718E12,
1.0724213377031631E12,
3.1388106597100226E11,
1.1405727247661633E12,
1.2464739913912961E12,
3.2771161059896655E11,
1.2102869787179648E12,
1.168806596179512E12,
5.871383012375131E11,
1.2765757372075571E12,
5.868323434343102E11,
9.887351363037219E11,
5.392282944314777E11,
1.1926033895638833E12,
6.867917070018711E11,
1.1682059242674294E12,
2.4442056772643954E11,
1.1250254537683052E12,
8.875186600355891E10,
3.46331811747409E11,
1.127077925657995E12,
7.056541627184794E11,
1.308631075052609E12,
7.7875319089675E11,
5.52717019956371E11,
7.727797813063546E11,
6.177219592063667E11,
2.9448141585070874E11,
9.617992263836586E11,
6.762500987418107E11,
1.1954995292124463E12,
1.0741763597148225E12,
1.9915919731861673E11,
9.507720563185525E11,
1.1009594810160002E12,
4.1381256571745465E11,
2.2526550777831213E11,
2.5919816802026202E11,
3.8453225321522577E11,
3.796715779825083E11,
6.512277843921505E10,
1.0483456960599313E12,
1.0725956186588704E11,
5.701504883615902E11,
9.085583903150035E11,
1.2764816439306753E12,
1.033783414053437E12,
1.188379914238302E12,
6.42733442524156E11,
3.911345432964901E11,
7.936334657654698E11,
1.4473479058272617E11,
1.2030471387183499E12,
5.900668555531211E11,
8.078992189613184E11,
1.2004364275316113E12,
1.250275098717202E12,
2.856556784847933E11,
1.9118298791320355E11,
5.4291847597892596E11,
3.9527733898520874E11,
6.384539941791654E11,
1.2812873515441786E11,
6.325269269733575E9,
5.403119000792323E11,
8.023708335126083E11,
3.761680594623883E10,
1.2641772837928888E11,
Check out UUID as well...
My suggestion
long id = System.currentTimeMillis();
for (int i = 0; i < 10; i++) {
//do your work
id++;
}

Categories

Resources