I am reading netty 4 source code. eventLoop.inEventLoop() appears everywhere.
According to Netty in Action:
A Channel is registered for its lifetime with a single EventLoop.
A single EventLoop may be assigned to one or more Channels.
a channel has and only has one eventLoop/thread.
Theoretically, eventLoop.inEventLoop() is to make sure code blocks are executed by the assigned eventLoop/thread. Furthermore, if you call something from non-io thread, eventLoop.inEventLoop() goes to false, and will be executed by assigned eventLoop/thread.
For example, the following code goes to else block(NioSocketChannel$NioSocketChannelUnsafe(AbstractChannel$AbstractUnsafe).register(EventLoop, ChannelPromise)) where the channel is not registered(assigned to an eventloop/thread).
if (eventLoop.inEventLoop()) {
register0(promise);
} else {
try {
eventLoop.execute(new Runnable() {
#Override
public void run() {
register0(promise);
}
});
} catch (Throwable t) {
...
}
}
I am really confused, whats the point of eventLoop.inEventLoop().
What does eventLoop.inEventLoop() protect from?
Besides the above one, can you give me some more specific examples in practice to demonstrate why and how eventloop.inEventLoop() == false? What kind of code do you call? Where do you call? How does the code make eventloop.inEventLoop() == false?
This kind of code ensures that only the correct eventLoop/thread works with/change the Channel object. This solves a lot of race conditions and multi threading problems when only one specific thread can work with the Channel object. This has something to do with what is called "thread safe" and if or if not a class is considered "thread safe" or not. The code can be read as follow:
if (amIOnTheCorrectThread()) {
doTheActualWork(); // I do the work
} else {
scheduleOnTheCorrectThread.performAction({ doTheActualWork(); }); // let him do the work
}
Depending on if you are on the correct thread, the work is done directly (on the correct thread) or the task is off-loaded to the correct thread, so that the other thread does the work. The other thread does that by having an endless loop and check if there are any new tasks to execute. As an example, check the run() method of the io.netty.channel.ThreadPerChannelEventLoop class:
#Override
protected void run() {
for (;;) {
Runnable task = takeTask();
if (task != null) {
task.run();
// [...]
}
[...]
I have a method that I would like to call. However, I'm looking for a clean, simple way to kill it or force it to return if it is taking too long to execute.
I'm using Java.
to illustrate:
logger.info("sequentially executing all batches...");
for (TestExecutor executor : builder.getExecutors()) {
logger.info("executing batch...");
executor.execute();
}
I figure the TestExecutor class should implement Callable and continue in that direction.
But all i want to be able to do is stop executor.execute() if it's taking too long.
Suggestions...?
EDIT
Many of the suggestions received assume that the method being executed that takes a long time contains some kind of loop and that a variable could periodically be checked.
However, this is not the case. So something that won't necessarily be clean and that will just stop the execution whereever it is is acceptable.
You should take a look at these classes :
FutureTask, Callable, Executors
Here is an example :
public class TimeoutExample {
public static Object myMethod() {
// does your thing and taking a long time to execute
return someResult;
}
public static void main(final String[] args) {
Callable<Object> callable = new Callable<Object>() {
public Object call() throws Exception {
return myMethod();
}
};
ExecutorService executorService = Executors.newCachedThreadPool();
Future<Object> task = executorService.submit(callable);
try {
// ok, wait for 30 seconds max
Object result = task.get(30, TimeUnit.SECONDS);
System.out.println("Finished with result: " + result);
} catch (ExecutionException e) {
throw new RuntimeException(e);
} catch (TimeoutException e) {
System.out.println("timeout...");
} catch (InterruptedException e) {
System.out.println("interrupted");
}
}
}
Java's interruption mechanism is intended for this kind of scenario. If the method that you wish to abort is executing a loop, just have it check the thread's interrupted status on every iteration. If it's interrupted, throw an InterruptedException.
Then, when you want to abort, you just have to invoke interrupt on the appropriate thread.
Alternatively, you can use the approach Sun suggest as an alternative to the deprecated stop method. This doesn't involve throwing any exceptions, the method would just return normally.
I'm assuming the use of multiple threads in the following statements.
I've done some reading in this area and most authors say that it's a bad idea to kill another thread.
If the function that you want to kill can be designed to periodically check a variable or synchronization primitive, and then terminate cleanly if that variable or synchronization primitive is set, that would be pretty clean. Then some sort of monitor thread can sleep for a number of milliseconds and then set the variable or synchronization primitive.
Really, you can't... The only way to do it is to either use thread.stop, agree on a 'cooperative' method (e.g. occassionally check for Thread.isInterrupted or call a method which throws an InterruptedException, e.g. Thread.sleep()), or somehow invoke the method in another JVM entirely.
For certain kinds of tests, calling stop() is okay, but it will probably damage the state of your test suite, so you'll have to relaunch the JVM after each call to stop() if you want to avoid interaction effects.
For a good description of how to implement the cooperative approach, check out Sun's FAQ on the deprecated Thread methods.
For an example of this approach in real life, Eclipse RCP's Job API's 'IProgressMonitor' object allows some management service to signal sub-processes (via the 'cancel' method) that they should stop. Of course, that relies on the methods to actually check the isCancelled method regularly, which they often fail to do.
A hybrid approach might be to ask the thread nicely with interrupt, then insist a couple of seconds later with stop. Again, you shouldn't use stop in production code, but it might be fine in this case, esp. if you exit the JVM soon after.
To test this approach, I wrote a simple harness, which takes a runnable and tries to execute it. Feel free to comment/edit.
public void testStop(Runnable r) {
Thread t = new Thread(r);
t.start();
try {
t.join(2000);
} catch (InterruptedException e) {
throw new RuntimeException(e);
}
if (!t.isAlive()) {
System.err.println("Finished on time.");
return;
}
try {
t.interrupt();
t.join(2000);
if (!t.isAlive()) {
System.err.println("cooperative stop");
return;
}
} catch (InterruptedException e) {
throw new RuntimeException(e);
}
System.err.println("non-cooperative stop");
StackTraceElement[] trace = Thread.getAllStackTraces().get(t);
if (null != trace) {
Throwable temp = new Throwable();
temp.setStackTrace(trace);
temp.printStackTrace();
}
t.stop();
System.err.println("stopped non-cooperative thread");
}
To test it, I wrote two competing infinite loops, one cooperative, and one that never checks its thread's interrupted bit.
public void cooperative() {
try {
for (;;) {
Thread.sleep(500);
}
} catch (InterruptedException e) {
System.err.println("cooperative() interrupted");
} finally {
System.err.println("cooperative() finally");
}
}
public void noncooperative() {
try {
for (;;) {
Thread.yield();
}
} finally {
System.err.println("noncooperative() finally");
}
}
Finally, I wrote the tests (JUnit 4) to exercise them:
#Test
public void testStopCooperative() {
testStop(new Runnable() {
#Override
public void run() {
cooperative();
}
});
}
#Test
public void testStopNoncooperative() {
testStop(new Runnable() {
#Override
public void run() {
noncooperative();
}
});
}
I had never used Thread.stop() before, so I was unaware of its operation. It works by throwing a ThreadDeath object from whereever the target thread is currently running. This extends Error. So, while it doesn't always work cleanly, it will usually leave simple programs with a fairly reasonable program state. For example, any finally blocks are called. If you wanted to be a real jerk, you could catch ThreadDeath (or Error), and keep running, anyway!
If nothing else, this really makes me wish more code followed the IProgressMonitor approach - adding another parameter to methods that might take a while, and encouraging the implementor of the method to occasionally poll the Monitor object to see if the user wants the system to give up. I'll try to follow this pattern in the future, especially methods that might be interactive. Of course, you don't necessarily know in advance which methods will be used this way, but that is what Profilers are for, I guess.
As for the 'start another JVM entirely' method, that will take more work. I don't know if anyone has written a delegating class loader, or if one is included in the JVM, but that would be required for this approach.
Nobody answered it directly, so here's the closest thing i can give you in a short amount of psuedo code:
wrap the method in a runnable/callable. The method itself is going to have to check for interrupted status if you want it to stop (for example, if this method is a loop, inside the loop check for Thread.currentThread().isInterrupted and if so, stop the loop (don't check on every iteration though, or you'll just slow stuff down.
in the wrapping method, use thread.join(timeout) to wait the time you want to let the method run. or, inside a loop there, call join repeatedly with a smaller timeout if you need to do other things while waiting. if the method doesn't finish, after joining, use the above recommendations for aborting fast/clean.
so code wise, old code:
void myMethod()
{
methodTakingAllTheTime();
}
new code:
void myMethod()
{
Thread t = new Thread(new Runnable()
{
public void run()
{
methodTakingAllTheTime(); // modify the internals of this method to check for interruption
}
});
t.join(5000); // 5 seconds
t.interrupt();
}
but again, for this to work well, you'll still have to modify methodTakingAllTheTime or that thread will just continue to run after you've called interrupt.
The correct answer is, I believe, to create a Runnable to execute the sub-program, and run this in a separate Thread. THe Runnable may be a FutureTask, which you can run with a timeout ("get" method). If it times out, you'll get a TimeoutException, in which I suggest you
call thread.interrupt() to attempt to end it in a semi-cooperative manner (many library calls seem to be sensitive to this, so it will probably work)
wait a little (Thread.sleep(300))
and then, if the thread is still active (thread.isActive()), call thread.stop(). This is a deprecated method, but apparently the only game in town short of running a separate process with all that this entails.
In my application, where I run untrusted, uncooperative code written by my beginner students, I do the above, ensuring that the killed thread never has (write) access to any objects that survive its death. This includes the object that houses the called method, which is discarded if a timeout occurs. (I tell my students to avoid timeouts, because their agent will be disqualified.) I am unsure about memory leaks...
I distinguish between long runtimes (method terminates) and hard timeouts - the hard timeouts are longer and meant to catch the case when code does not terminate at all, as opposed to being slow.
From my research, Java does not seem to have a non-deprecated provision for running non-cooperative code, which, in a way, is a gaping hole in the security model. Either I can run foreign code and control the permissions it has (SecurityManager), or I cannot run foreign code, because it might end up taking up a whole CPU with no non-deprecated means to stop it.
double x = 2.0;
while(true) {x = x*x}; // do not terminate
System.out.print(x); // prevent optimization
I can think of a not so great way to do this. If you can detect when it is taking too much time, you can have the method check for a boolean in every step. Have the program change the value of the boolean tooMuchTime to true if it is taking too much time (I can't help with this). Then use something like this:
Method(){
//task1
if (tooMuchTime == true) return;
//task2
if (tooMuchTime == true) return;
//task3
if (tooMuchTime == true) return;
//task4
if (tooMuchTime == true) return;
//task5
if (tooMuchTime == true) return;
//final task
}
I've got pretty complex method, with few loops and other method calls. I'd like to make it possible to interrupt this method. The only solution I've found to do so, is by checking if Thread.currentThread().isInterrupted(). The problem is I'd like to check it in every iteration of every loop and in few other places. After doing that the code does not really look so nice.
So there are two questions really.
1. Is there any other way to stop the method when thread was interrupted than checking the same flag over and over again?
2. Is it better - mostly in case of performance - to just add !Thread.currentThread().isInterrupted() condition in every loop or use some method like the one below?
void checkIfInterrupted() {
if (Thread.interrupted()) {
throw new InterruptedException();
}
}
Preferred way is to check Thread.currentThread().isInterrupted() every loop in your thread. Viz. Java Concurrency In Practice - Listening 7.5:
class PrimeProducer extends Thread {
private final BlockingQueue<BigInteger> queue;
PrimeProducer(BlockingQueue<BigInteger> queue) {
this.queue = queue;
}
public void run() {
try {
BigInteger p = BigInteger.ONE;
while (!Thread.currentThread().isInterrupted())
queue.put(p = p.nextProbablePrime());
} catch (InterruptedException consumed) {
/* Allow thread to exit */
}
}
public void cancel() { interrupt(); }
}
There are two points in each loop iteration where interruption may be
detected: in the blocking put call, and by explicitly polling the
interrupted status in the loop header. The explicit test is not
strictly necessary here because of the blocking put call, but it makes
PrimeProducer more responsive to interruption because it checks for
interruption before starting the lengthy task of searching for a
prime, rather than after. When calls to interruptible blocking methods
are not frequent enough to deliver the desired responsiveness,
explicitly testing the interrupted status can help.
I have an object that is being initialized in a separate thread. Initialization can take several seconds while a local DB is being populated.
SpecialAnalysis currentAnalysis = new SpecialAnalysis(params_here);
I'm trying to implement a "cancel" button, that sets the object's isCancelled boolean to true. What is the proper Java way to implement this?
while (currentAnalysis == null) {
}
currentAnalysis.cancel();
This method freezes the program as it appears to have entered a computationally inefficient loop. Is this a case where I could use Object.wait()?
My current bad/semi-successful solution is:
while (currentAnalysis == null) {
Thread.sleep(500);
}
currentAnalysis.cancel();
Thanks!
Firstly, yes Object.wait() and Object.notify() / Object.notifyAll() are what you need. Whether or not you use them directly is a different matter. Due to the ease of making mistakes programming directly with wait/notify it is generally recommended to use the concurrency tools added in Java 1.5 (see second approach below).
The traditional wait/notify approach:
Initialisation:
synchronized (lockObject) {
SpecialAnalysis currentAnalysis = new SpecialAnalysis(params_here);
lockObject.notifyAll();
}
In the 'cancel' thread:
synchronized (lockObject) {
while (currentAnalysis == null) {
try { lockObject.wait(); }
catch Exception(e) { } // FIXME: ignores exception
}
}
currentAnalysis.cancel();
Of course these could be synchronized methods instead of blocks. Your choice of lockObject will depend on how many 'cancel' threads you need etc. In theory it could be anything, i.e. Object lockObject = new Object(); as long as you are careful the correct threads have access to it.
Note that it is important to put the call to wait() in a while loop here due to the possibility of spurious wakeups coming from the underlying OS.
A simpler approach would be to use a CountDownLatch, sparing you from the nuts and bolts of wait()¬ify():
(I'm making a couple of assumptions here in order to suggest a possibly cleaner approach).
class AnalysisInitialiser extends Thread {
private CountDownLatch cancelLatch = new CountDownLatch(1);
private SpecialAnalysis analysis = null;
#Override
public void run() {
analysis = new SpecialAnalysis(params);
cancelLatch.countDown();
}
public SpecialAnalysis getAnalysis() {
cancelLatch.await();
return analysis;
}
}
Then in the thread that needs to send the cancel signal: (obviously you need to get hold of the AnalysisInitialiser object in some way)
analysisInit.getAnalysis.cancel();
No concurrency primitive boilerplate, yay!
i like this question so voted up..
you can do like below
do {
if(currentAnalysis != null){
currentAnalysis.cancel();
}
}
while (currentAnalysis == null)
here your do keeps checking the value of currentAnalysis and once its not null then it performs cancel else keeps looping and checking currentAnalysis value.
this is one better approach i am finding right now
The Following class DoStuff starts a thread and syncs to protect the listener object from being accessed when null.
Now when accessing the DoStuff class function setOnProgressListener() externally I'm having issues because the call is getting held for a long time before it exits the function call. I'm not sure why this happens? I seems as if the synchronization has queued up a lot of calls? Any input on this would help!
I'm essentially passing null to the listener because I no longer wish to get updated for this status. I do this as part of my process to kill the DoStuff Thread.
Thanks!
public class DoStuff extends Runnable
{
Object MUTEX = new Object();
private OnProgressListener mOnProgressListener = null;
public DoStuff()
{
new Thread(this).start();
}
public void setOnProgressListener( OnProgressListener onProgressListener )
{
synchronized (MUTEX)
{
mOnProgressListener = onProgressListener;
}
}
private void reportStatus( int statusId )
{
synchronized (MUTEX)
{
if (null != mOnStatusListener)
{
mOnStatusListener.setStatusMessage(new OnStatusEvent(this, statusId));
}
}
}
// this is the run of a thread
public void run()
{
int status = 0;
do
{
// do some work and report the current work status
status = doWork();
reportStatus( status );
} while(true);
}
}
You should use wait/notify. here is sample;
public class DoStuff {
Object MUTEX = new Object();
String data = null;
public void setData(String data) {
synchronized (MUTEX) {
this.data = data;
System.out.println(Thread.currentThread());
MUTEX.notifyAll();
}
}
public void run() {
do {
synchronized (MUTEX) {
if (null == data) {
return;
} else {
System.out.println(data);
}
try {
MUTEX.wait();
} catch (InterruptedException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
}
} while (true);
}
}
The trouble with this code is that your while() loop is constantly trying to grab the monitor for MUTEX immediately after releasing it or even yield()-ing to help the scheduler put another thread in. So there's a very good chance that anyone else trying to obtain that monitor will be starved, because your while() loop will consume most of your CPU time and even when other threads could run, they might not get the monitor they're waiting for.
Ideally a wait()/notify() pair should be used or failing that, you should at least call a Thread.yield() in your while loop, outside the synchronized block. (But I this second "solution" really isn't a very good one, you should consider using the first one instead.)
UPDATE: I read the code again and I think I believe to see what you wanted to achieve: printing the value of data every time you set a new value. If that's true, you should definitely go for the wait/notify solution, although if you want to absolutely guarantee that every single value is printed, you need to do even more work, possibly using a queue.
I'm a little confused about your code, can you provide the full listing?
First, where does DoStuff start a thread? Why are you quitting if your data is still null? (you might actually be out of the thread before setData even executes).
But the main thing here is that you're doing essentially a busy-waiting loop, in which you synchronize on the mutex. This is pretty wasteful and will generally block cores of your CPU.
Depending on what you are trying to do, you might want to use a wait-notify scheme, in which the thread goes to sleep until something happens.
Thanks all for your help. I was able to determine why the indefinite lock. Something important and obvious is that once I run the reportStatus() function call it will hold the lock MUTEX until it is completely done executing the callback. My fault was that at the registered callback I was calling setOnProgressListener(null) by mistake. Yes, I admit didn't post enough code, and most likely all of you would have catched the bug... So calling setOnProgressListener(null) would wait until the MUTEX object has been released, and the reportStatus() was held waiting to call setOnProgressListener(null), therefore I was in a deadlock!
Again the main point I learned is to remember that triggering a callback message will hold until the registered callback function is done processing it's call.
Thanks all!