官方给出解释是“A timer provides a way to perform a delayed action or a periodic action. The timer waits until a certain time interval has elapsed and then fires, sending a specified message to a specified object. ” 翻译过来就是timer就是一个能在从现在开始的后面的某一个时刻或者周期性的执行我们指定的方法的对象。
原文如下“A repeating timer reschedules itself based on the scheduled firing time, not the actual firing time. For example, if a timer is scheduled to fire at a particular time and every 5 seconds after that, the scheduled firing time will always fall on the original 5 second time intervals, even if the actual firing time gets delayed. If the firing time is delayed so far that it passes one or more of the scheduled firing times, the timer is fired only once for that time period; the timer is then rescheduled, after firing, for the next scheduled firing time in the future.”