Question

Im trying to do a simple game where I continually need input from players. This needs to happen during a certain time period only. Everything that is sent after that will be discarded. After the time period a new game starts. So:

1. Start game
2. Wait for input from all players during 10 seconds

3. 10 secs no more input

4. Calculate the winner and do some stuff
5. Goto 1.

I was thinking using a timer and timertask to keep track of time and maybe use a boolean variable that changes from “open” to “closed” after 10 seconds? Please give me some advise on this.

Answer 1

You’re right, with a timer you can change that value:

 Timer timer = new Timer();
 timer.schedule( new TimerTask(){
       public void run() {
            synchronized( lock ) { 
                isOpen = false;
            }
        }
   }, 10000 );

And that’s it. The method inside run will be executed 10 seconds after you call schedule

EDIT

Sample:

import java.util.Timer;
import java.util.TimerTask;
import java.util.Date;
import static java.lang.System.out;

public class Test {
    public static void main( String [] args ) {
        Timer timer = new Timer();
        timer.schedule( new TimerTask(){
            public void run() {
                out.println(new Date()+" No more bets, thank you!");
            }
        }, 10000 );
        out.println(new Date() + " Place your bets, place your bets!!");
    }
}