[[HowdoIspecifytimeperiodinahumanfriendlysyntax-HowdoIspecifytimeperiodinahumanfriendlysyntax]]
= How do I specify time period in a human friendly syntax?

*Since Camel 2.3*

Some of the Camel xref:ROOT:component.adoc[components] offers options to
specify a time period, which must be entered in milli second as unit.
This may be unfriendly to read as a human when the value is large such
as 45min = 2700000 millis.

So in Camel 2.3 you can now configure any endpoint uri parameter using a
String syntax, which at runtime will get converted to millis (`long`
type).

You can use the following short syntax, which is most common to use:

[width="100%",cols="50%,50%",options="header",]
|============
|Syntax |Unit
|h |hour
|m |minute
|s |second
|============

So for example the xref:components::timer-component.adoc[Timer] endpoint can be configured as
follows:

[source,java]
----
from("timer:foo?period=45m").to("log:foo");
----

You can mix and match the units so you can do this as well:

[source,java]
----
from("timer:foo?period=1h15m").to("log:foo");
from("timer:bar?period=2h30s").to("log:bar");
from("timer:bar?period=3h45m58s").to("log:bar");
----

However you can also use long syntax:

[width="100%",cols="50%,50%",options="header",]
|=========================
|Syntax |Unit
|hour or hours |hour
|minute or minutes |minute
|second or seconds |second
|=========================

[source,java]
----
from("timer:foo?period=45minutes").to("log:foo");
----
