Interface MonotonicClock

  • All Known Implementing Classes:
    MonotonicFakeClock, MonotonicSystemClock

    public interface MonotonicClock
    A provider of time.

    Clocks should provide wall clock time, obtained from a reasonable clock source, such as the local system clock.

    MonotonicClocks provide the following behavior, with the assertion always being true if ProposedTimestamp.blockUntil(Duration) is used:

       MonotonicClock clk = ...;
       long r1;
       try (ProposedTimestamp t1 = clk.propose()) {
            r1 = t1.millis();
            t1.blockUntil(...);
       }
    
       try (ProposedTimestamp t2 = clk.propose()) {
            assert t2.millis() > r1;
       }
     
    Since:
    4.6
    • Method Detail

      • propose

        ProposedTimestamp propose()
        Obtain a timestamp close to "now".

        Proposed times are close to "now", but may not yet be certainly in the past. This allows the calling thread to interleave other useful work while waiting for the clock instance to create an assurance it will never in the future propose a time earlier than the returned time.

        A hypothetical implementation could read the local system clock (managed by NTP) and return that proposal, concurrently sending network messages to closely collaborating peers in the same cluster to also ensure their system clocks are ahead of this time. In such an implementation the ProposedTimestamp.blockUntil(Duration) method would wait for replies from the peers indicating their own system clocks have moved past the proposed time.

        Returns:
        a ProposedTimestamp object.