Adding Timeout to Asynchronous Calls in Java

Question

Not solely a Firebase question, but I am using Firebase to make posts to a backend from Android and run it 10 times, once every second.

Firebase ref = new Firebase(URL);
ref.child("Time").setValue(Currentime());

However this is an Asynchronous Call and when I put a while loop:

while (time_now < time_start + 10 seconds) {
     Firebase ref = new Firebase(URL);
     ref.child("Time").setValue(Currentime());
}

It seems to run the while loop first and then ~10 Firebase calls at the end. Is there a way to add a timeout so that it forces the Asynchronous (Firebase) calls to run for a second before calling the next Async call?

Answer 1

If you look at the Java example on the Firebase web site, you'll see that it has a doTransactions method and an onComplete method:

Firebase countRef = new Firebase(URL);
Transaction.Handler handler = new Transaction.Handler() {
    @Override
    public Transaction.Result doTransaction(MutableData currentData) {
        // set the new time
        ...
    }

    @Override
    public void onComplete(FirebaseError error, boolean committed, DataSnapshot currentData) {
        if (error != null) {
            ...
        } else {
            if (!committed) {
                ...
            } else {
                // transaction committed, do next iteration
                ...
            }
            ...
        }
    }
});
countRef.runTransaction(handler);

So you'd set the new time in the doTransaction method:

// set the new time
currentData.setValue(time_now);
return Transaction.success(currentData);

And then start a next iteration in the onComplete method.

// transaction committed, do next iteration
if (time_now < time_start + 10 seconds) {
    countRef.runTransaction(handler);
}