Calling a function periodically in Scala while another expensive function is computing - multithreading

Question

I have a function that takes a long time to compute
def longFunc = {Thread.sleep(30000); true}
while this function is computing, I'd need to ping a server so it keeps waiting for the value of my function. But for the sake of the argument let's say I need to run the following function every 5 seconds while my longFunc is running
def shortFunc = println("pinging server! I am alive!")
To do this I have the following snippet and it works but I wonder if there is a better pattern for this scenario
import scala.concurrent.{Await, Future}
import scala.concurrent.duration._
import java.util.{Timer, TimerTask}
import scala.concurrent.ExecutionContext.Implicits.global
def shortFunc = println("pinging server! I am alive!")
def longFunc = {Thread.sleep(30000); true}
val funcFuture = Future{longFunc}
val timer = new Timer()
def pinger = new TimerTask {
def run(): Unit = shortFunc
}
timer.schedule(pinger, 0L, 5000L) // ping the server every two minutes to say you are still working
val done = Await.result(funcFuture, 1 minutes)
pinger.cancel

Answer 1

I'm not actually sure if this is more elegant pattern or just for fun:
import scala.concurrent.{Await, Future}
import scala.concurrent.duration._
import scala.concurrent.ExecutionContext.Implicits.global
def waiter[T](futureToWait:Future[_], waitFunc: => T, timer: Duration) = Future {
while (!futureToWait.isCompleted) {
Try(Await.ready(futureToWait, timer))
waitFunc
}
}
def longFunc = {Thread.sleep(30000); true}
def shortFunc = println("pinging server! I am alive!")
val funcFuture = Future{longFunc}
waiter(funcFuture,shortFunc,5 second)
val done = Await.result(funcFuture, 1 minutes)
The same but shorter:
import scala.concurrent.{Await, Future}
import scala.concurrent.duration._
import scala.concurrent.ExecutionContext.Implicits.global
def longFunc = {Thread.sleep(30000); true}
def shortFunc = println("pinging server! I am alive!")
val funcFuture = Future{longFunc}
def ff:Future[_] = Future{
shortFunc
Try(Await.ready(funcFuture, 5 second)).getOrElse(ff)
}
ff
val done = Await.result(funcFuture, 1 minutes)