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Chapter 128. Timer

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Timer Component

The timer: component is used to generate message exchanges when a timer fires You can only consume events from this endpoint.

URI format

timer:name[?options]
Where name is the name of the Timer object, which is created and shared across endpoints. So if you use the same name for all your timer endpoints, only one Timer object and thread will be used.
You can append query options to the URI in the following format, ?option=value&option=value&...
Note: The IN body of the generated exchange is null. So exchange.getIn().getBody() returns null.
Advanced Scheduler
See also the Quartz component that supports much more advanced scheduling.
Specify time in human friendly format
In Camel 2.3 onwards you can specify the time in human friendly syntax.

Options

Name Default Value Description
time null A java.util.Date the first event should be generated. If using the URI, the pattern expected is: yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss or yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ss.
pattern null Allows you to specify a custom Date pattern to use for setting the time option using URI syntax.
period 1000 If greater than 0, generate periodic events every period milliseconds.
delay 1000 The number of milliseconds to wait before the first event is generated. Should not be used in conjunction with the time option. The default value has been changed to 1000 from Camel 2.11 onwards. In older releases the default value is 0.
fixedRate false Events take place at approximately regular intervals, separated by the specified period.
daemon true Specifies whether or not the thread associated with the timer endpoint runs as a daemon.
repeatCount 0 Camel 2.8: Specifies a maximum limit of number of fires. So if you set it to 1, the timer will only fire once. If you set it to 5, it will only fire five times. A value of zero or negative means fire forever.

Exchange Properties

When the timer is fired, it adds the following information as properties to the Exchange:
Name Type Description
Exchange.TIMER_NAME String The value of the name option.
Exchange.TIMER_TIME Date The value of the time option.
Exchange.TIMER_PERIOD long The value of the period option.
Exchange.TIMER_FIRED_TIME Date The time when the consumer fired.
Exchange.TIMER_COUNTER Long Camel 2.8: The current fire counter. Starts from 1.

Message Headers

When the timer is fired, it adds the following information as headers to the IN message
Name Type Description
Exchange.TIMER_FIRED_TIME java.util.Date The time when the consumer fired

Sample

To set up a route that generates an event every 60 seconds:
   from("timer://foo?fixedRate=true&period=60000").to("bean:myBean?method=someMethodName");
Tip
Instead of 60000 you can specify the more readable, period=60s.
The above route will generate an event and then invoke the someMethodName method on the bean called myBean in the Registry such as JNDI or Spring.
And the route in Spring DSL:
  <route>
    <from uri="timer://foo?fixedRate=true&eriod=60000"/>
    <to uri="bean:myBean?method=someMethodName"/>
    </route>

Firing only once

Available as of Camel 2.8
You may want to fire a message in a Apache Camel route only once, such as when starting the route. To do that, you use the repeatCount option as follows:
   <route>
     <from uri="timer://foo?repeatCount=1"/>
     <to uri="bean:myBean?method=someMethodName"/>
   </route>
See also:
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