scheduleAtFixedRate vs scheduleWithFixedDelay

java, scheduled-tasks, scheduledexecutorservice

Solution

Try adding a `Thread.sleep(1000);` call within your `run()` method... Basically it's the difference between scheduling something based on when the previous execution ends and when it (logically) starts.

For example, suppose I schedule an alarm to go off with a fixed rate of once an hour, and every time it goes off, I have a cup of coffee, which takes 10 minutes. Suppose that starts at midnight, I'd have:

00:00: Start making coffee
00:10: Finish making coffee
01:00: Start making coffee
01:10: Finish making coffee
02:00: Start making coffee
02:10: Finish making coffee

If I schedule with a fixed delay of one hour, I'd have:

00:00: Start making coffee
00:10: Finish making coffee
01:10: Start making coffee
01:20: Finish making coffee
02:20: Start making coffee
02:30: Finish making coffee

Which one you want depends on your task.

Problem

What's the main difference between `scheduleAtFixedRate` and `scheduleWithFixedDelay` methods of ScheduledExecutorService? ``` scheduler.scheduleAtFixedRate(new Runnable() { @Override public void run() { System.out.println("scheduleAtFixedRate: " + new Date()); } }, 1, 3L , SECONDS); scheduler.scheduleWithFixedDelay(new Runnable() { @Override public void run() { System.out.println("scheduleWithFixedDelay: " + new Date()); } }, 1, 3L , SECONDS); ``` they print exact the same time, seems they are executed at exact the same interval.

Original source