Timer Component

Table of Contents

URI format
Options
Exchange Properties
Sample
See Also

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.

TIP:*Advanced Scheduler* See also the Quartz component that supports much more advanced scheduling.

TIP:*Specify time in human friendly format* In Camel 2.3 onwards you can specify the time in human friendly syntax.

Options

The Timer component has no options.

The Timer component supports 13 endpoint options which are listed below:

{% raw %}

Name	Group	Default	Java Type	Description
timerName	consumer		`String`	Required The name of the timer
bridgeErrorHandler	consumer	`false`	`boolean`	Allows for bridging the consumer to the Camel routing Error Handler which mean any exceptions occurred while the consumer is trying to pickup incoming messages or the likes will now be processed as a message and handled by the routing Error Handler. By default the consumer will use the org.apache.camel.spi.ExceptionHandler to deal with exceptions that will be logged at WARN/ERROR level and ignored.
delay	consumer	`1000`	`long`	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 is 1000. You can also specify time values using units such as 60s (60 seconds) 5m30s (5 minutes and 30 seconds) and 1h (1 hour).
fixedRate	consumer	`false`	`boolean`	Events take place at approximately regular intervals separated by the specified period.
period	consumer	`1000`	`long`	If greater than 0 generate periodic events every period milliseconds. The default value is 1000. You can also specify time values using units such as 60s (60 seconds) 5m30s (5 minutes and 30 seconds) and 1h (1 hour).
repeatCount	consumer	`0`	`long`	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.
exceptionHandler	consumer (advanced)		`ExceptionHandler`	To let the consumer use a custom ExceptionHandler. Notice if the option bridgeErrorHandler is enabled then this options is not in use. By default the consumer will deal with exceptions that will be logged at WARN/ERROR level and ignored.
exchangePattern	consumer (advanced)		`ExchangePattern`	Sets the default exchange pattern when creating an exchange.
daemon	advanced	`true`	`boolean`	Specifies whether or not the thread associated with the timer endpoint runs as a daemon. The default value is true.
pattern	advanced		`String`	Allows you to specify a custom Date pattern to use for setting the time option using URI syntax.
synchronous	advanced	`false`	`boolean`	Sets whether synchronous processing should be strictly used or Camel is allowed to use asynchronous processing (if supported).
time	advanced		`Date`	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.
timer	advanced		`Timer`	To use a custom Timer

{% endraw %}

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.

Sample

Table of Contents

Available as of Camel 2.17
Firing only once

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 use period=60s which is more friendly to read.

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&amp;period=60000"/>
    <to uri="bean:myBean?method=someMethodName"/>
  </route>

Available as of Camel 2.17

You may want to fire messages in a Camel route as soon as possible you can use a negative delay:

  <route>
    <from uri="timer://foo?delay=-1"/>
    <to uri="bean:myBean?method=someMethodName"/>
  </route>

In this way the timer will fire messages immediately.

You can also specify a repeatCount parameter in conjunction with a negative delay to stop firing messages after a fixed number has been reached.

If you don’t specify a repeatCount then the timer will continue firing messages until the route will be stopped.

Firing only once

Available as of Camel 2.8

You may want to fire a message in a Camel route only once, such as when starting the route. To do that you use the repeatCount option as shown:

  <route>
    <from uri="timer://foo?repeatCount=1"/>
    <to uri="bean:myBean?method=someMethodName"/>
  </route>