Sleep in Java

This post will discuss how to temporarily cease the execution of a Java program for a specified time.

There are two in-built mechanisms to sleep in Java.

1. Using `Thread.sleep`

We know that JVM allows an application to have multiple threads of execution running concurrently. To put the currently executing thread to sleep, one can use the Thread.sleep method, which takes in the total number of milliseconds to sleep.

Consider the following code, which calls the Thread.sleep method to sleep for five seconds.

class Main

{

public static void main(String[] args)

{

System.out.println("Pausing for 5 seconds");

// To sleep for five seconds

try {

Thread.sleep(5000);

} catch (InterruptedException e) {

e.printStackTrace();

}

System.out.println("Back to work…");

}

Download Run Code

Output:

Pausing for 5 seconds
Back to work…

2. Using `TimeUnit`

We can also use TimeUnit enumeration defined in java.util.concurrent package to perform sleep operation in Java. TimeUnit provides sleep() method, which calls Thread.sleep using the specified time unit. It has 7 constants – DAYS, HOURS, MICROSECONDS, MILLISECONDS, MINUTES, NANOSECONDS, SECONDS for convenience.

To sleep in seconds, use TimeUnit.SECONDS.

import java.util.concurrent.TimeUnit;

class Main

{

public static void main(String[] args)

{

System.out.println("Pausing for 5 seconds");

// To sleep for five seconds

try {

TimeUnit.SECONDS.sleep(5);

} catch (InterruptedException e) {

e.printStackTrace();

}

System.out.println("Back to work…");

}

Download Run Code

Output:

Pausing for 5 seconds
Back to work…

Similarly, to sleep in minutes, use TimeUnit.MINUTES.

import java.util.concurrent.TimeUnit;

class Main

{

public static void main(String[] args)

{

System.out.println("Pausing for 1 minute");

// To sleep for one minute

try {

TimeUnit.MINUTES.sleep(1);

} catch (InterruptedException e) {

e.printStackTrace();

}

System.out.println("Back to work…");

}

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Output:

Pausing for 1 minute
Back to work…

Note that TimeUnit’s sleep() method converts time arguments into the form required by the Thread.sleep method.

That’s all about implementing sleep in Java.

1. Using Thread.sleep

2. Using TimeUnit

Share this:

1. Using `Thread.sleep`

2. Using `TimeUnit`