Develop Reference

Method optimization in java

I'm new to Java. I'm trying to optimize following method:
public void myLongRunningMethod()
{
LongRunningOperation1();
LongRunningOperation2();
LongRunningOperation3();
Log.Info("completion message goes here.")
}
LongRunningOperation1(),LongRunningOperation2() and LongRunningOperation3() are independant of each other and the order of their completion does not matter.
But the log statement should be printed only after successful completion of all these method calls.
If I take the following approach, since its using a new thread, I believe the order of completion of methods wont be guarenteed.
public String myMethod()
{
Thread thread1 = new Thread(() -> {
LongRunningOperation1();
}).start();
Thread thread2 = new Thread(() -> {
LongRunningOperation2();
}).start();
Thread thread3 = new Thread(() -> {
LongRunningOperation3();
}).start();
Log.Info("completion message goes here.")
}

As comments are mentioning, the easiest is either calling join() on each of the 3 threads: thread1.join(); thread2.join(); thread3.join();
Or use a CountDownLatch though it is a touch more involved (but maybe more conceptually 'correct'):
latch = new CountDownLatch(3)
get each thread to do latch.countDown() after completing its task.
get the main thread to latch.await() - voila.

Instead of creating Threads manually it is much better to use ExecutorService API. Using ExecutorService you can submit long running operations and as result you will receive Future instance which will let you wait until operation will be completed.
See below example which shows the idea:
import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.List;
import java.util.concurrent.ExecutorService;
import java.util.concurrent.Executors;
import java.util.concurrent.Future;
import java.util.concurrent.TimeUnit;
public class Threads {
public static void main(String[] args) {
new Threads().myMethod();
}
private String myMethod() {
ExecutorService executor = Executors.newFixedThreadPool(3);
List<Future<?>> futures = new ArrayList<>(3);
futures.add(executor.submit(this::LongRunningOperation1));
futures.add(executor.submit(this::LongRunningOperation2));
futures.add(executor.submit(this::LongRunningOperation3));
for (Future<?> future : futures) {
try {
future.get();
} catch (Exception e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
}
System.out.println("All operations are finished!");
return "Done";
}
private void LongRunningOperation1() {
sleep(TimeUnit.SECONDS.toMillis(1));
System.out.println("LongRunningOperation1 is finished!");
}
private void LongRunningOperation2() {
sleep(TimeUnit.SECONDS.toMillis(2));
System.out.println("LongRunningOperation2 is finished!");
}
private void LongRunningOperation3() {
sleep(TimeUnit.SECONDS.toMillis(3));
System.out.println("LongRunningOperation3 is finished!");
}
private void sleep(long millis) {
try {
Thread.sleep(millis);
} catch (InterruptedException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
}
}
Above code prints:
LongRunningOperation1 is finished!
LongRunningOperation2 is finished!
LongRunningOperation3 is finished!
All operations are finished!

Java ExecutorService - why does this program keep running?

I'm trying to build something like a background task executor which terminates background tasks after a certain time if there's no answer (background tasks call webservices and they can time-out but I need to make sure they time out under a certain time)
So I have this as an experiment but if I run this the program does not terminate. I wonder if its because a background thread is still active maybe? How can I shut this down?
public class Test {
public static class Task implements Callable<Object> {
#Override
public Object call() throws Exception {
while(true) {}
}
}
public static void main(String[] args) {
try {
Task t = new Task();
ExecutorService executor = Executors.newSingleThreadExecutor();
executor.invokeAll(Arrays.asList(t), 5L, TimeUnit.SECONDS);
executor.shutdown();
System.out.println("DONE");
}
catch (InterruptedException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
}
}

The ExecutorService does not kill the running threads, and since threads are created as non-daemon, the JVM doesn't exit.
What happens is that when timeout expires, futures returned by invokeAll() are cancelled, which means that a flag is set on the future object and you get a CancellationException if you try to call future.get(). However neither invokeAll(), nor shutdown() (or shutdownNow()) do anything to kill the thread.
Note that you cannot even kill threads yourself. All you can do is setting some application-specific flag or call Thread.interrupt(), but even that does not guarantee that the thread terminates.

There is a great post by Winterbe on how executors work. This is an excerpt from his tutorial
So basically executors always keep listening to the new tasks or callables/runnables and one way to shutdown the executor or stop the executor from listening is to interrupt whatever task it is executing. One way to do is calling the future.get() which stops when the main thread , suspends it and makes sure that the current thread gets executed completely before handing over the resource to other thread
You could probably have a higher number of threads and write your code to shutdown gracefully in the InterruptedException block
Here is a sample code that I've written and tested:
import java.util.Arrays;
import java.util.List;
import java.util.concurrent.Callable;
import java.util.concurrent.ExecutionException;
import java.util.concurrent.ExecutorService;
import java.util.concurrent.Executors;
import java.util.concurrent.TimeUnit;
public class ExecutorTest {
public static void main(String[] args) {
ExecutorService service = Executors.newWorkStealingPool(10);
Callable<AccountClass> newInstance = () -> {
TimeUnit.SECONDS.sleep(3);
return getAcc(Thread.currentThread().getId());
};
// for now only one instance is added to the list
// List<Callable<AccountClass>> callablesSingleList = Arrays.asList(newInstance);
// adding multipleCallalbes
List<Callable<AccountClass>> callablesMultipleList = Arrays.asList(
() -> {
TimeUnit.SECONDS.sleep(3);
return getAcc(Thread.currentThread().getId());
},
() -> {
TimeUnit.SECONDS.sleep(3);
return getAcc(Thread.currentThread().getId());
},
() -> {
TimeUnit.SECONDS.sleep(3);
return getAcc(Thread.currentThread().getId());
});
try {
service.invokeAll(callablesMultipleList).stream().map(future -> {
AccountClass fuClass = null;
try {
fuClass = future.get();
} catch (InterruptedException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
} catch (ExecutionException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
return fuClass;
}).forEach(getValue -> {
System.out.println("retunred value:" + getValue);
});
} catch (InterruptedException ex) {
ex.printStackTrace();
}
}
private static AccountClass getAcc(long itr) {
// probably call DB for every new thread iterator
System.out.println("getting the current thread" + itr);
AccountClass ac = new AccountClass();
ac.setId(itr);
ac.setName("vv");
ac.setRole("admin");
System.out.println("sending the accnt class:" + ac);
return ac;
}
}
UPDATE:
Another way of shutting down the executor is using the service.shutDownNow() - > which shutdowns the program even if its the middle of execution. You could use awaitTermination method to specify if you feel that it might take a few minutes to complete execution and then probably shutdown the service
import java.util.List;
import java.util.concurrent.Executors;
import java.util.concurrent.ScheduledExecutorService;
import java.util.concurrent.TimeUnit;
public class ExecutorScheduleFixedRate {
public static void main(String[] args) {
ScheduledExecutorService service = Executors.newScheduledThreadPool(10);
Runnable task = () -> {
getAcc(33);
};
service.scheduleWithFixedDelay(task, 10, 5, TimeUnit.SECONDS);
if (!service.isShutdown()) {
List<Runnable> list2 = service.shutdownNow();
System.out.println(list2);
System.out.println("is shutdonw" + service.isShutdown());
System.out.println("Do something after the thread execution");
}
}
private static AccountClass getAcc(long itr) {
// probably call DB for every new thread iterator
System.out.println("getting the current thread" + itr);
AccountClass ac = new AccountClass();
ac.setId(itr);
ac.setName("vv");
ac.setRole("admin");
System.out.println("sending the accnt class:" + ac);
return ac;
}
}

LinkedBlockingQueue failing to wait for the threads to execute

I am making a WordCounter, which has several threads counting the words in different files. I have gotten everything to work, except one little issue.
I cannot figure out a proper way to wait for the threads to finish. Everything works if I set a Thread.sleep to wait for a short amount of time, the only problem is that, this will not be a proper solution if the counter takes longer than the sleep does.
import java.io.*;
import java.util.*;
import java.util.concurrent.BlockingQueue;
public class WordCounter implements Runnable{
private String file;
private BlockingQueue<Integer> q;
private int words = 0;
public WordCounter(String f, BlockingQueue<Integer> queue){
file = f;
q = queue;
}
public void run(){
try{
Scanner in = new Scanner(new File(file));
while (in.hasNext()){
in.next();
words++;
}
in.close();
System.out.println(file + ": " + words);
q.add(words);
}
catch (FileNotFoundException e){
System.out.println(file + " blev ikke fundet.");
}
}
}
This is the code from the actual word-counter. I want my main-thread to wait for these word-counter threads to do the q.add(words); function before doing anything else.
import java.util.concurrent.BlockingQueue;
import java.util.concurrent.LinkedBlockingQueue;
public class MainThread implements Runnable{
private String[] arguments;
public MainThread(String[] args){
arguments = args;
}
public void run() {
final BlockingQueue<Integer> queue = new LinkedBlockingQueue<Integer>();
for(String f : arguments){
WordCounter c = new WordCounter(f, queue);
Thread t = new Thread(c);
t.start();
}
while(!queue.isEmpty()){
try {
System.out.println(queue.take());
Thread.sleep(100);
} catch (InterruptedException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
}
}
}
This is the main-thread. I will need some sort of way to wait for the other threads to finish before I continue to my while statement at the bottom, but how?
Thanks in advance.

Use an ExecutorService and wait on the Future returned. The code below will submit each task to a thread within the executor service (thread pool) and get back the future for that task. When all submitted it will wait on the future. The get method will only return when the run method completes in the task.
public class MainThread implements Runnable{
private String[] arguments;
public MainThread(String[] args){
arguments = args;
}
public void run() {
ExecutorService e = Executors.newFixedThreadPool(arguments.length);
final BlockingQueue<Integer> queue = new LinkedBlockingQueue<Integer>();
List<Future<?>> tasks = new ArrayList<>();
for(String f : arguments){
tasks.add(e.submit(new WordCounter(f, queue)));
}
for(Future<?> f : tasks) {
f.get();
}
while(!queue.isEmpty()){
try {
System.out.println(queue.take());
Thread.sleep(100);
} catch (InterruptedException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
}
}
}
However
You can make your code cleaner by removing the BlockingQueue entirely and having each task be a Callable<Integer> where it simply returns the words variable. And when you call future.get() the return value there would be the word count.

This is what i would do:
create a counter variable (here is how to do it in a way that is safe for multi-threads) to keep track of how many threads you are spawning in the main
thread
create an interface with function signatures to
increment/decrement that counter
implement that interface in your
main thread
subclass a worker thread to accept that interface as
a parameter
once the worker thread finishes, call that interface
to decrement the number of running threads.
in the implementation of the decrement function on the main thread, add a
condition to do something once the counter is 0.

If you know how many threads to wait on, then you can use a shared semaphore. The worker threads each calls release on the semaphore when they're done; the main thread calls acquire(n) where n is the number of worker threads, which causes the main thread to wait until n permits are available (i.e. until all n worker threads are finished).

You need to keep the created threads in a list and join them from the current thread.
Something like this:
List<Thread> threads = new LinkedList<Thread>();
for (String f : arguments) {
WordCounter c = new WordCounter(f, queue);
Thread t = new Thread(c);
t.start();
threads.add(t);
}
for (Thread t : threads) {
t.join();
}
The join() method will block until the thread terminates.

Executor Service - timeout of thread

While I was exploring ExecutorService, I encountered a method Future.get() which accepts the timeout.
The Java doc of this method says
Waits if necessary for at most the given time for the computation to complete, and then retrieves its result, if available.
Parameters:
timeout the maximum time to wait
unit the time unit of the timeout argument
As per my understanding, we are imposing a timeout on the callable, we submit to the ExecutorService so that, my callable will interrupt after the specified time(timeout) has passed
But as per below code, the longMethod() seems to be running beyond the timeout(2 seconds), and I am really confused understanding this. Can anyone please point me to the right path?
import java.util.concurrent.Callable;
import java.util.concurrent.ExecutorService;
import java.util.concurrent.Executors;
import java.util.concurrent.TimeUnit;
public class Timeout implements Callable<String> {
public void longMethod() {
for(int i=0; i< Integer.MAX_VALUE; i++) {
System.out.println("a");
}
}
#Override
public String call() throws Exception {
longMethod();
return "done";
}
/**
* #param args
*/
public static void main(String[] args) {
ExecutorService service = Executors.newSingleThreadExecutor();
try {
service.submit(new Timeout()).get(2, TimeUnit.SECONDS);
} catch (Exception e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
}
}

my callable will interrupt after the specified time(timeout) has passed
Not true. The task will continue to execute, instead you will have a null string after the timeout.
If you want to cancel it:
timeout.cancel(true) //Timeout timeout = new Timeout();
P.S. As you have it right now this interrupt will have no effect what so ever. You are not checking it in any way.
For example this code takes into account interrupts:
private static final class MyCallable implements Callable<String>{
#Override
public String call() throws Exception {
StringBuilder builder = new StringBuilder();
try{
for(int i=0;i<Integer.MAX_VALUE;++i){
builder.append("a");
Thread.sleep(100);
}
}catch(InterruptedException e){
System.out.println("Thread was interrupted");
}
return builder.toString();
}
}
And then:
ExecutorService service = Executors.newFixedThreadPool(1);
MyCallable myCallable = new MyCallable();
Future<String> futureResult = service.submit(myCallable);
String result = null;
try{
result = futureResult.get(1000, TimeUnit.MILLISECONDS);
}catch(TimeoutException e){
System.out.println("No response after one second");
futureResult.cancel(true);
}
service.shutdown();

The timeout on get() is for how long the 'client' will wait for the Future to complete. It does not have an impact on the future's execution.
Object result;
int seconds = 0;
while ((result = fut.get.(1, TimeUnit.SECOND)) == null) {
seconds++;
System.out.println("Waited " + seconds + " seconds for future";
}

my callable will interrupt after the specified time(timeout) has passed
The above statement is wrong, Usually Future.get is blocking. Specifying the timeout allows you to use it in a non blocking manner.
This is useful for instance in time critical applications, if you need a result within let's say 2 seconds and receiving after that means you can't do anything with that.

Wait until any of Future<T> is done

I have few asynchronous tasks running and I need to wait until at least one of them is finished (in the future probably I'll need to wait util M out of N tasks are finished).
Currently they are presented as Future, so I need something like
/**
* Blocks current thread until one of specified futures is done and returns it.
*/
public static <T> Future<T> waitForAny(Collection<Future<T>> futures)
throws AllFuturesFailedException
Is there anything like this? Or anything similar, not necessary for Future. Currently I loop through collection of futures, check if one is finished, then sleep for some time and check again. This looks like not the best solution, because if I sleep for long period then unwanted delay is added, if I sleep for short period then it can affect performance.
I could try using
new CountDownLatch(1)
and decrease countdown when task is complete and do
countdown.await()
, but I found it possible only if I control Future creation. It is possible, but requires system redesign, because currently logic of tasks creation (sending Callable to ExecutorService) is separated from decision to wait for which Future. I could also override
<T> RunnableFuture<T> AbstractExecutorService.newTaskFor(Callable<T> callable)
and create custom implementation of RunnableFuture with ability to attach listener to be notified when task is finished, then attach such listener to needed tasks and use CountDownLatch, but that means I have to override newTaskFor for every ExecutorService I use - and potentially there will be implementation which do not extend AbstractExecutorService. I could also try wrapping given ExecutorService for same purpose, but then I have to decorate all methods producing Futures.
All these solutions may work but seem very unnatural. It looks like I'm missing something simple, like
WaitHandle.WaitAny(WaitHandle[] waitHandles)
in c#. Are there any well known solutions for such kind of problem?
UPDATE:
Originally I did not have access to Future creation at all, so there were no elegant solution. After redesigning system I got access to Future creation and was able to add countDownLatch.countdown() to execution process, then I can countDownLatch.await() and everything works fine.
Thanks for other answers, I did not know about ExecutorCompletionService and it indeed can be helpful in similar tasks, but in this particular case it could not be used because some Futures are created without any executor - actual task is sent to another server via network, completes remotely and completion notification is received.

simple, check out ExecutorCompletionService.

ExecutorService.invokeAny

Why not just create a results queue and wait on the queue? Or more simply, use a CompletionService since that's what it is: an ExecutorService + result queue.

This is actually pretty easy with wait() and notifyAll().
First, define a lock object. (You can use any class for this, but I like to be explicit):
package com.javadude.sample;
public class Lock {}
Next, define your worker thread. He must notify that lock object when he's finished with his processing. Note that the notify must be in a synchronized block locking on the lock object.
package com.javadude.sample;
public class Worker extends Thread {
private Lock lock_;
private long timeToSleep_;
private String name_;
public Worker(Lock lock, String name, long timeToSleep) {
lock_ = lock;
timeToSleep_ = timeToSleep;
name_ = name;
}
#Override
public void run() {
// do real work -- using a sleep here to simulate work
try {
sleep(timeToSleep_);
} catch (InterruptedException e) {
interrupt();
}
System.out.println(name_ + " is done... notifying");
// notify whoever is waiting, in this case, the client
synchronized (lock_) {
lock_.notify();
}
}
}
Finally, you can write your client:
package com.javadude.sample;
public class Client {
public static void main(String[] args) {
Lock lock = new Lock();
Worker worker1 = new Worker(lock, "worker1", 15000);
Worker worker2 = new Worker(lock, "worker2", 10000);
Worker worker3 = new Worker(lock, "worker3", 5000);
Worker worker4 = new Worker(lock, "worker4", 20000);
boolean started = false;
int numNotifies = 0;
while (true) {
synchronized (lock) {
try {
if (!started) {
// need to do the start here so we grab the lock, just
// in case one of the threads is fast -- if we had done the
// starts outside the synchronized block, a fast thread could
// get to its notification *before* the client is waiting for it
worker1.start();
worker2.start();
worker3.start();
worker4.start();
started = true;
}
lock.wait();
} catch (InterruptedException e) {
break;
}
numNotifies++;
if (numNotifies == 4) {
break;
}
System.out.println("Notified!");
}
}
System.out.println("Everyone has notified me... I'm done");
}
}

As far as I know, Java has no analogous structure to the WaitHandle.WaitAny method.
It seems to me that this could be achieved through a "WaitableFuture" decorator:
public WaitableFuture<T>
extends Future<T>
{
private CountDownLatch countDownLatch;
WaitableFuture(CountDownLatch countDownLatch)
{
super();
this.countDownLatch = countDownLatch;
}
void doTask()
{
super.doTask();
this.countDownLatch.countDown();
}
}
Though this would only work if it can be inserted before the execution code, since otherwise the execution code would not have the new doTask() method. But I really see no way of doing this without polling if you cannot somehow gain control of the Future object before execution.
Or if the future always runs in its own thread, and you can somehow get that thread. Then you could spawn a new thread to join each other thread, then handle the waiting mechanism after the join returns... This would be really ugly and would induce a lot of overhead though. And if some Future objects don't finish, you could have a lot of blocked threads depending on dead threads. If you're not careful, this could leak memory and system resources.
/**
* Extremely ugly way of implementing WaitHandle.WaitAny for Thread.Join().
*/
public static joinAny(Collection<Thread> threads, int numberToWaitFor)
{
CountDownLatch countDownLatch = new CountDownLatch(numberToWaitFor);
foreach(Thread thread in threads)
{
(new Thread(new JoinThreadHelper(thread, countDownLatch))).start();
}
countDownLatch.await();
}
class JoinThreadHelper
implements Runnable
{
Thread thread;
CountDownLatch countDownLatch;
JoinThreadHelper(Thread thread, CountDownLatch countDownLatch)
{
this.thread = thread;
this.countDownLatch = countDownLatch;
}
void run()
{
this.thread.join();
this.countDownLatch.countDown();
}
}

If you can use CompletableFutures instead then there is CompletableFuture.anyOf that does what you want, just call join on the result:
CompletableFuture.anyOf(futures).join()
You can use CompletableFutures with executors by calling the CompletableFuture.supplyAsync or runAsync methods.

Since you don't care which one finishes, why not just have a single WaitHandle for all threads and wait on that? Whichever one finishes first can set the handle.

See this option:
public class WaitForAnyRedux {
private static final int POOL_SIZE = 10;
public static <T> T waitForAny(Collection<T> collection) throws InterruptedException, ExecutionException {
List<Callable<T>> callables = new ArrayList<Callable<T>>();
for (final T t : collection) {
Callable<T> callable = Executors.callable(new Thread() {
#Override
public void run() {
synchronized (t) {
try {
t.wait();
} catch (InterruptedException e) {
}
}
}
}, t);
callables.add(callable);
}
BlockingQueue<Runnable> queue = new ArrayBlockingQueue<Runnable>(POOL_SIZE);
ExecutorService executorService = new ThreadPoolExecutor(POOL_SIZE, POOL_SIZE, 0, TimeUnit.SECONDS, queue);
return executorService.invokeAny(callables);
}
static public void main(String[] args) throws InterruptedException, ExecutionException {
final List<Integer> integers = new ArrayList<Integer>();
for (int i = 0; i < POOL_SIZE; i++) {
integers.add(i);
}
(new Thread() {
public void run() {
Integer notified = null;
try {
notified = waitForAny(integers);
} catch (InterruptedException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
} catch (ExecutionException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
System.out.println("notified=" + notified);
}
}).start();
synchronized (integers) {
integers.wait(3000);
}
Integer randomInt = integers.get((new Random()).nextInt(POOL_SIZE));
System.out.println("Waking up " + randomInt);
synchronized (randomInt) {
randomInt.notify();
}
}
}