timer task not working with calendar date object

[Chris Dancy]

The idea is to have the timer task execute once every 12 hours ... specifically at 6am and 6pm. If I use a generic date object which is set to the current time ... it works. However when I use Calendar to create a new date object it runs constant non stop and I can't figure it out. Here is my code

    
        Calendar cal = Calendar.getInstance();
        cal.set(Calendar.YEAR,2010);
        cal.set(Calendar.MONTH,2);
        cal.set(Calendar.DAY_OF_MONTH, 1);
        cal.set(Calendar.HOUR_OF_DAY,6);

	timer = new Timer(true);
	processor = new EmailProcessor(this);
        timer.scheduleAtFixedRate(processor,cal.getTime(),10000);

The code is set to execute every 10 seconds right now for testing ... but even this code fires off every second. I'm not sure if it's just been a long day and I'm missing something ... but I can't figure it out. Any help would be great.

[Paul Clapham]

From the API documentation for that method:

If an execution is delayed for any reason (such as garbage collection or other background activity), two or more executions will occur in rapid succession to "catch up."

And since you've told it you wanted it to start on March 1, it has over 3 weeks of catching up to do.

[Rob Spoor]

I don't think Timer likes a start date in the past. Basically what Paul said.

[Chris Dancy]

oh oh oh ... I miss understood how it worked. I assumed that's what it was doing but just wanted to ask to be sure. Thanks guys.