Java - Run tasks in varying time intervals - java

This question is for a college assignment.
I want to run a block of code every n*2 seconds (e.g. wait 1 second and run and wait 2 seconds and run and wait 4 seconds and run, etc) up to 5 times.
I currently have something like this.
int timer = 1000;
int tryCounter = 0;
while( !condition() && counter < 5){
doTask();
Thread.sleep(timer);
timer *= 2;
counter++;
}
Although this works, my grade benefits from not using Thread.sleep(). I figured out using a ScheduledThreadPoolExecutor with a fixed rate would be one way to go but I cannot get it to work due to the fact that the interval is not actually fixed.
This is for a theoretical Distributed System with high concurrency capabilities so what matters is the high scalability.
I could get away with Thread.sleep() if there was really no benefit or a viable way of doing this by writing it on my report. So does anyone have any insight on this?

It is possible to schedule tasks with ScheduledExecutorService combined with some logic. The .schedule argument lets you specify a time unit to use. You can declare a variable that can handle the increment you are trying to do.
int timer = 1000;
ScheduledExecutorService service = Executors.newSingleThreadScheduledExecutor();
Runnable runnable = new Runnable() {
public void run()
{
//Move your code you want to implement here
}
};
//Increment your variable
while(!condition()) {
for(int i = 0; i < 5; i++) {
service.schedule(runnable, timer, TimeUnit.SECOND);
timer *= 2;
}
}
Moving your code execution within the runnable block and then scheduling it within a for loop where the timer is incremented should accomplish the effect you are going for. Hope that helps!

Related

exec multiThread for one process - java

I have a problem, like this :
I have an array with 50 elements, i'd like calculate with each element, for faster, how do devide for 5 threads, each thread handling and calculate for 10 elements, and not duplicate with orther threads.
And remember number of thread like a variable, maybe 5 or 10 or any number.
I try use like :
ExecutorService executor = Executors.newCachedThreadPool();
for(int i = 1; i <= 5; i++){ //mycalculate }
but all of 5 threads just process 10 elements first.
Anyone can help me ! please.
(Hope you understand my question, my English not good)
Thanks
ExecutorService executor = Executors.newCachedThreadPool();
for (int i = 1; i <= 5; i++) {
int final taskNo = i;
executor.submit(new Runnable() {
public void run() {
// perform 'mycalculate' for task 'taskNo'
}
});
}
(That can be written more neatly using lambdas, but lets stick with the "classic Java" way for now.)
This does not deal with the issue of how to wait for the tasks to finish. For that, you could capture the Future objects that submit returns, and call get on each one.
It also doesn't deal with any synchronization that would be necessary if the tasks changed any shared objects.
i'd like calculate with each element, for faster ...
If the 'mycalculate' task is lengthy, and the tasks don't interfere with each other, and you have multiple cores, this approach should give some speedup.
Try parallel stream like this.
SomeClass[] array = new SomeClass[50];
// fill array
Stream.of(array)
.parallel()
.forEach(e -> /* calculate */);

Load Test using Java - timer task vs scheduler

I need to execute a load test using Java in which one of the test strategies require x threads to be fired of every y period of time for z minutes and thereafter have a constant totalThread amount of threads running for the load test duration (eg with a total of 100 threads, start 10 threads at 5 second intervals until all 100 threads have started, and continue to keep all 100 threading running (once it has finished execution it should restart) for the specified duration of the test, say one hour)
I have attempted to use the timer task but it seems limiting, would thread pool scheduler be a better option? What would be the best approach?
public class MyTask extends TimerTask{
public void run() {
System.out.println("STARTING THREAD "+ counter +" "+ new Date());
//execute test
counter++;
if (counter > maxIterations) {
MyTask.this.cancel();
return;
}
}
List<TimerTask> MyTaskList = new ArrayList<TimerTask>();
for (int i = 1 ; i <= threadsPerIteration ; i++) {
TimerTask MyTimerTask = new MyTask(NumberOfIterations);
MyTaskList.add(MyTimerTask);
timer.schedule(MyTimerTask, initialDelayMilli, threadDelayMilli);
}
Thank You
Don't use a TimerTask for each thread. Instead, use a single TimerTask, that fires once per interval, with your example numbers once every 5 seconds.
Each of the first 10 times the TimerTask fires, it spawns off 10 threads. On each subsequent firing, it checks for the number of active threads, and spawns off enough new threads to bring the total to 100, until the end of your test.
Thanks for the help, i decided to use the threadpool executor together with the timertask class as follows:
I used the Executors.newScheduledThreadPool(int x) method to control the amount of threads able to run concurrently, together with a timer task that is set to increase the threadpool size every y amount of time :
TimerTask DelayTimerTask = new TimerTask() { //task to increase threadpool size
public void run() {
MyExecutor.setCorePoolSize(i * incrementAmount); //timer task increments threadpool size by threadPoolIncrement
i++;
}
};
timer.scheduleAtFixedRate(DelayTimerTask,0,intervalLength);
in this way the amount of concurrent threads will increase by incrementAmount every intervalLength.

How do I check how many events are happening within 2 seconds? (timer)

I need to check how many events are detected within 2 seconds. I have the timer working and I have everything else working...but I ran into a problem: the loop only checks one time, per second and I can't seem to figure out how to fix that. I need it to check constantly during these two seconds to see how many events there were in total!
Here is what I have:
int seconds = 0;
System.out.println("Seconds: " + seconds);
while(seconds < 2)
{
//Wait 1 second
try {
Thread.sleep(1000);
}
catch(Exception e) {}
seconds++;
System.out.println("Seconds: " + seconds);
//This needs to be looping the whole time.
//But right now, it's being blocked and only checked once
if(eventDetected() && seconds <= 2){
events++;
}
}
So you can see my problem. I can't split them up because then the second timer would run, and THEN eventDetected() would be checked. I need it to check constantly DURING the two second timer...so I basically need both things to happen at once. Is there any way I can do this?
Thanks for any help ahead of time!
I think your design pattern needs work -- I don't know what type event you're looking to detect, but no matter how short your sleep time is, there's a chance you could miss an event using the current pattern. Here's what I suggest:
Have eventDetected() increment your events counter. That way, you won't miss an event.
Then, you just need a way to turn on and off listening (and perhaps resetting the event counter). If you're sure that in you're current pattern you are really in a different thread that won't block your eventDetected() method, you could set a flag to check. For example:
When you want to start listening:
listenForEvents = true;
In eventDetected():
if (listenForEvents) { events++; }
When you want to stop listening (for example, after your Thread.sleep() call):
listenForEvents = false;
With multithreading, make sure to watch out for concurrency issues checking and setting the variables, of course.
I would tell you what kind of event I have to keep track of but then I'd have to kill you :D
Answered my own question. Hopefully this will help anyone else out who has a similar problem at some point! I looked up multithreading a bit...
I created a new class EventTimer which implements Runnable, with a public field for seconds:
public class EventTimer implements Runnable{
int seconds;
static int timerThreadCount = 0;
Thread t;
public EventTimer() {
timerThreadCount++;
this.seconds = 0;
t = new Thread(this, "Event Timer");
t.start(); // Start the thread
}
#Override
public void run() {
// TODO Auto-generated method stub
while(seconds < 2)
{
//Wait 1 second
try {
Thread.sleep(1000);
}
catch(Exception e) {
System.out.println("Waiting interupted.");
}
seconds++;
System.out.println("Seconds: " + seconds);
}
}
}
Then I used an instance of the EventTimer, and used a while loop & if statement to solve my problem.
EventTimer t = new EventTimer();
while(t.seconds < 2){
if(eventDetected()) events++;
}
It was actually quite simple! I realize that each iteration of my loop of operation (since the entire code piece above is inside an infinite loop) will create a new EventTimer thread and I will eventually run into memory problems however. How would I close/end a thread after the timer has reached 2 seconds?

How to test task performance, using multitheading?

I have some exercises, and one of them refers to concurrency. This theme is new for me, however I spent 6 hours and finally solve my problem. But my knowledge of corresponding API is poor, so I need advice: is my solution correct or may be there is more appropriate way.
So, I have to implement next interface:
public interface PerformanceTester {
/**
* Runs a performance test of the given task.
* #param task which task to do performance tests on
* #param executionCount how many times the task should be executed in total
* #param threadPoolSize how many threads to use
*/
public PerformanceTestResult runPerformanceTest(
Runnable task,
int executionCount,
int threadPoolSize) throws InterruptedException;
}
where PerformanceTestResult contains total time (how long the whole performance test took in total), minimum time (how long the shortest single execution took) and maximum time (how long the longest single execution took).
So, I learned many new things today - about thread pools, types Executors, ExecutorService, Future, CompletionService etc.
If I had Callable task, I could make next:
Return current time in the end of call() procedure.
Create some data structure (some Map may be) to store start time and Future object, that retuned by fixedThreadPool.submit(task) (do this executionCount times, in loop);
After execution I could just subtract start time from end time for every Future.
(Is this right way in case of Callable task?)
But! I have only Runnable task, so I continued looking. I even create FutureListener implements Callable<Long>, that have to return time, when Future.isDone(), but is seams little crazy for my (I have to double threads count).
So, eventually I noticed CompletionService type with interesting method take(), that Retrieves and removes the Future representing the next completed task, waiting if none are yet present., and very nice example of using ExecutorCompletionService. And there is my solution.
public class PerformanceTesterImpl implements PerformanceTester {
#Override
public PerformanceTestResult runPerformanceTest(Runnable task,
int executionCount, int threadPoolSize) throws InterruptedException {
long totalTime = 0;
long[] times = new long[executionCount];
ExecutorService pool = Executors.newFixedThreadPool(threadPoolSize);
//create list of executionCount tasks
ArrayList<Runnable> solvers = new ArrayList<Runnable>();
for (int i = 0; i < executionCount; i++) {
solvers.add(task);
}
CompletionService<Long> ecs = new ExecutorCompletionService<Long>(pool);
//submit tasks and save time of execution start
for (Runnable s : solvers)
ecs.submit(s, System.currentTimeMillis());
//take Futures one by one in order of completing
for (int i = 0; i < executionCount; ++i) {
long r = 0;
try {
//this is saved time of execution start
r = ecs.take().get();
} catch (ExecutionException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
return null;
}
//put into array difference between current time and start time
times[i] = System.currentTimeMillis() - r;
//calculate sum in array
totalTime += times[i];
}
pool.shutdown();
//sort array to define min and max
Arrays.sort(times);
PerformanceTestResult performanceTestResult = new PerformanceTestResult(
totalTime, times[0], times[executionCount - 1]);
return performanceTestResult;
}
}
So, what can you say? Thanks for replies.
I would use System.nanoTime() for higher resolution timings. You might want to ignroe the first 10,000 tests to ensure the JVM has warmed up.
I wouldn't bother creating a List of Runnable and add this to the Executor. I would instead just add them to the executor.
Using Runnable is not a problem as you get a Future<?> back.
Note: Timing how long the task spends in the queue can make a big difference to the timing. Instead of taking the time from when the task was created you can have the task time itself and return a Long for the time in nano-seconds. How the timing is done should reflect the use case you have in mind.
A simple way to convert a Runnable task into one which times itself.
finla Runnable run = ...
ecs.submit(new Callable<Long>() {
public Long call() {
long start = System.nanoTime();
run.run();
return System.nanoTime() - start;
}
});
There are many intricacies when writing performance tests in the JVM. You probably aren't worried about them as this is an exercise, but if you are this question might have more information:
How do I write a correct micro-benchmark in Java?
That said, there don't seem to be any glaring bugs in your code. You might want to ask this on the lower traffic code-review site if you want a full review of your code:
http://codereview.stackexchange.com

Fibonacci on Java ExecutorService runs faster sequentially than in parallel

I am trying out the executor service in Java, and wrote the following code to run Fibonacci (yes, the massively recursive version, just to stress out the executor service).
Surprisingly, it will run faster if I set the nThreads to 1. It might be related to the fact that the size of each "task" submitted to the executor service is really small. But still it must be the same number also if I set nThreads to 1.
To see if the access to the shared Atomic variables can cause this issue, I commented out the three lines with the comment "see text", and looked at the system monitor to see how long the execution takes. But the results are the same.
Any idea why this is happening?
BTW, I wanted to compare it with the similar implementation with Fork/Join. It turns out to be way slower than the F/J implementation.
public class MainSimpler {
static int N=35;
static AtomicInteger result = new AtomicInteger(0), pendingTasks = new AtomicInteger(1);
static ExecutorService executor;
public static void main(String[] args) {
int nThreads=2;
System.out.println("Number of threads = "+nThreads);
executor = Executors.newFixedThreadPool(nThreads);
Executable.inQueue = new AtomicInteger(nThreads);
long before = System.currentTimeMillis();
System.out.println("Fibonacci "+N+" is ... ");
executor.submit(new FibSimpler(N));
waitToFinish();
System.out.println(result.get());
long after = System.currentTimeMillis();
System.out.println("Duration: " + (after - before) + " milliseconds\n");
}
private static void waitToFinish() {
while (0 < pendingTasks.get()){
try {
Thread.sleep(1000);
} catch (InterruptedException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
}
executor.shutdown();
}
}
class FibSimpler implements Runnable {
int N;
FibSimpler (int n) { N=n; }
#Override
public void run() {
compute();
MainSimpler.pendingTasks.decrementAndGet(); // see text
}
void compute() {
int n = N;
if (n <= 1) {
MainSimpler.result.addAndGet(n); // see text
return;
}
MainSimpler.executor.submit(new FibSimpler(n-1));
MainSimpler.pendingTasks.incrementAndGet(); // see text
N = n-2;
compute(); // similar to the F/J counterpart
}
}
Runtime (approximately):
1 thread : 11 seconds
2 threads: 19 seconds
4 threads: 19 seconds
Update:
I notice that even if I use one thread inside the executor service, the whole program will use all four cores of my machine (each core around 80% usage on average). This could explain why using more threads inside the executor service slows down the whole process, but now, why does this program use 4 cores if only one thread is active inside the executor service??
It might be related to the fact that the size of each "task" submitted
to the executor service is really small.
This is certainly the case and as a result you are mainly measuring the overhead of context switching. When n == 1, there is no context switching and thus the performance is better.
But still it must be the same number also if I set nThreads to 1.
I'm guessing you meant 'to higher than 1' here.
You are running into the problem of heavy lock contention. When you have multiple threads, the lock on the result is contended all the time. Threads have to wait for each other before they can update the result and that slows them down. When there is only a single thread, the JVM probably detects that and performs lock elision, meaning it doesn't actually perform any locking at all.
You may get better performance if you don't divide the problem into N tasks, but rather divide it into N/nThreads tasks, which can be handled simultaneously by the threads (assuming you choose nThreads to be at most the number of physical cores/threads available). Each thread then does its own work, calculating its own total and only adding that to a grand total when the thread is done. Even then, for fib(35) I expect the costs of thread management to outweigh the benefits. Perhaps try fib(1000).

Categories

Resources