give a delay of few seconds without using threads

Question

How can I give a delay of few seconds without using threads.some function that I can call anywhere for giving delay. Android built-in function is highly preferred. Thanks

Answer 1

Use a Handler, and send either a simple message or a Runnable to it using a method such as postDelayed().

For example, define a Handler object to receive messages and Runnables:

private Handler mHandler = new Handler();

Define a Runnable:

private Runnable mUpdateTimeTask = new Runnable() {
    public void run() {
        // Do some stuff that you want to do here

    // You could do this call if you wanted it to be periodic:
        mHandler.postDelayed(this, 5000 );

        }
    };

Cause the Runnable to be sent to the Handler after a specified delay in ms:

mHandler.postDelayed(mUpdateTimeTask, 1000);

If you don't want the complexity of sending a Runnable to the Handler, you could also very simply send a message to it - even an empty message, for greatest simplicity - using method sendEmptyMessageDelayed().