Call invokeLater Method in Java

An invokeLater() method is a static method of the SwingUtilities class and it can be used to perform a task asynchronously in the AWT Event dispatcher thread. The SwingUtilities.invokeLater() method works like SwingUtilities.invokeAndWait() except that it puts the request on the event queue and returns immediately. An invokeLater() method does not wait for the block of code inside the Runnable referred by a target to execute.

Syntax

public static void invokeLater(Runnable target)

Example

import java.awt.*;
import java.awt.event.*;
import javax.swing.*;
public class InvokeLaterTest extends Object {
   private static void print(String msg) {
      String name = Thread.currentThread().getName();
      System.out.println(name + ": " + msg);
   }
   public static void main(String[] args) {
      final JLabel label= new JLabel("Initial text");
      JPanel panel = new JPanel(new FlowLayout());
      panel.add(label);
      JFrame f = new JFrame("InvokeLater Test");
      f.setContentPane(panel);
      f.setSize(400, 300);
      f.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
      f.setLocationRelativeTo(null);
      f.setVisible(true);
      try {
         print("sleeping for 5 seconds");
         Thread.sleep(5000);
      } catch(InterruptedException ie) {
         print("interrupted while sleeping");
      }
      print("creating the code block for an event thread");
      Runnable setTextRun = new Runnable() {
         public void run() {
            try {
               Thread.sleep(100);
               print("about to do setText()");
               label.setText("New text");
            } catch(Exception e) {
               e.printStackTrace();
            }
         }
      };
      print("about to call invokeLater()");
      SwingUtilities.invokeLater(setTextRun);
      print("back from invokeLater()");
   }
}

Output

main: sleeping for 5 seconds
main: creating the code block for an event thread 
main: about to call invokeLater() 
main: back from invokeLater() 
AWT-EventQueue-0: about to do setText()