Develop Reference

How to check when polling stopped

I have a message stream, where messages comes which I need to process and then store them in database. In Java, I've written polling code which polls stream and consumes messages every 20 seconds.
This is done inside an infinite for-loop, like below:
for (;;) {
try{
//1. Logic for polling.
//2. Logic for processing the message.
//3. Logic for storing the message in database.
Thread.sleep(20000 - <time taken for above 3 steps >);
} catch(Exception E){
//4. Exception handling.
}
}
This logic runs as expected and the stream is polled, but once in a while it hits an exception or something goes wrong and polling stops.
I want to have a mechanism, that as soon as polling stopped, let's say this for loop is not running for 60 seconds, I should receive a mail or ping.
What is the best way to invoke a method if this for loop is not running for 60 seconds?
I am thinking like, each for-loop execution will ping a heartbeat, and when that heartbeat pinging not received from for-loop then a mail sending is invoked.

There are two different reasons why polling stops making progress, and each needs a different approach:
If the logic throws a Throwable other than an Exception, for instance an Error, the catch does not match, and execution will leave the for-loop, and likely reach the thread's UncaughtExceptionHandler, the default implementation of which logs the exception to System.err and terminates the thread. To prevent this, you should catch Throwable rather than Exception.
The second possibility is that some step in your logic doesn't terminate, for instance due to an infinite loop, a deadlock, waiting for I/O operations, or whatever. In this case, you'll want to take a thread dump to see where the thread is stuck. You can automate this as follows:
class Watchdog {
final Duration gracePeriod;
final Thread watchedThread;
volatile Instant lastProgress;
public Watchdog(Duration gracePeriod) {
this.gracePeriod = gracePeriod;
watchedThread = Thread.currentThread();
everythingIsFine();
var t = new Thread(this::keepWatch);
t.setDaemon(true);
t.start();
}
public void everythingIsFine() {
lastProgress = Instant.now();
}
void keepWatch() {
while (true) {
var silence = Duration.between(lastProgress, Instant.now());
if (silence.compareTo(gracePeriod) > 0) {
System.err.println("Watchdog hasn't seen any progress for " + silence.toSeconds() + " seconds. The watched thread is currently at:");
for (var element : watchedThread.getStackTrace()) {
System.err.println("\tat " + element);
}
}
try {
Thread.sleep(gracePeriod);
} catch (InterruptedException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
}
}
}
while you can use as follows:
public class Test {
void step() throws Exception {
System.in.read();
}
void job() {
var snoopy = new Watchdog(Duration.ofSeconds(2));
for (;;) {
try {
step();
snoopy.everythingIsFine();
Thread.sleep(1000);
} catch (Throwable t) {
System.err.println(t);
}
}
}
public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
new Test().job();
}
}
once the grace period elapses, the WatchDog will print something like:
Watchdog hasn't seen any progress for 2 seconds. The watched thread is currently at:
at java.base/java.io.FileInputStream.readBytes(Native Method)
at java.base/java.io.FileInputStream.read(FileInputStream.java:293)
at java.base/java.io.BufferedInputStream.fill(BufferedInputStream.java:255)
at java.base/java.io.BufferedInputStream.implRead(BufferedInputStream.java:289)
at java.base/java.io.BufferedInputStream.read(BufferedInputStream.java:276)
at stackoverflow.Test.step(Test.java:48)
at stackoverflow.Test.job(Test.java:55)
at stackoverflow.Test.main(Test.java:65)

How to get the execution results of ExecutorService without blocking the current code path?

I have a service which adds a bunch of requests to Callables and then prints the results of the executions. Currently the service request is blocked until I print all the Future results from the execution. However I want to return 200 to the requestor and run these requests in parallel without blocking the request. How can I achieve this? Below is my code.
Below is my code to run parallel code.
public void runParallelFunctions(Callable<Map<String, String>> invokerTask) {
List<Callable<Map<String, String>>> myTasks = new ArrayList<>();
for (int i = 0; i < invocationCount; i++) {
myTasks.add(invokerTask);
}
List<Future<Map<String, String>>> results = null;
try {
results = executorService.invokeAll(myTasks);
} catch (InterruptedException e) {
}
this.printResultsFromParallelInvocations(results);
}
Below is how I print the results from the Futures.
private void printResultsFromParallelInvocations(List<Future<Map<String, String>>> results) {
results.forEach(executionResults -> {
try {
executionResults.get().entrySet().forEach(entry -> {
LOGGER.info(entry.getKey() + ": " + entry.getValue());
});
} catch (InterruptedException e) {
} catch (ExecutionException e) {
}
});
}
Below is how I'm invoking the above methods when someone places a request to the service.
String documentToBeIndexed = GSON.toJson(indexDocument);
int documentId = indexMyDocument(documentToBeIndexed);
createAdditionalCandidatesForFuture(someInput);
return true;
In the above code, I call the createAdditionalCandidatesForFuture and then return true. But the code still waits for the printResultsFromParallelInvocations method to complete. How can I make the code return after invoking createAdditionalCandidatesForFuture without waiting for the results to print? Do I have to print the results using another executor thread or is there another way? Any help would be much appreciated

The answer is CompletableFuture.
Updated runParallelFunctions:
public void runParallelFunctions(Callable<Map<String, String>> invokerTask) {
// write a wrapper to handle exception outside CompletableFuture
Supplier<Map<String, String>> taskSupplier = () -> {
try {
// some task that takes a long time
Thread.sleep(4000);
return invokerTask.call();
} catch (Exception e) {
System.out.println(e);
}
// return default value on error
return new HashMap<>();
};
for (int i = 0; i < 5; i++) {
CompletableFuture.supplyAsync(taskSupplier, executorService)
.thenAccept(this::printResultsFromParallelInvocations);
}
// main thread immediately comes here after running through the loop
System.out.println("Doing other work....");
}
And, printResultsFromParallelInvocations may look like:
private void printResultsFromParallelInvocations(Map<String, String> result) {
result.forEach((key, value) -> System.out.println(key + ": " + value));
}
Output:
Doing other work....
// 4 secs wait
key:value

Calling get on a Future will block the thread until the task is completed, so yes, you will have to move the printing of the results to another thread/Executor service.
Another option is that each task prints its results upon completion, provided they are supplied with the necessary tools to do so (Access to the logger, etc). Or putting it in another way, each task is divided into two consecutive steps: execution and printing.

CompletableFuture error handling in task chain

I completely lost it in how to do error handling with CompletableFutures. What I need is to have multiple tasks running async. These tasks consist of multiple steps like this example:
Receive data from DB -> Use this data for request -> Do another request -> Update DB record
Now every step could cause an Exception, i.e. DB record not found or incorrect data, request failed, bad response or update DB failed etc. I want to handle these Exceptions to log the error and stop the task and maybe even revert the task.
Now I build a new project to play with CompletableFutures to simulate this process. I used the following code:
public static Integer randomError() {
Random rd = new Random();
if(rd.nextBoolean()) {
try {
throw new Exception("RANDOM ERROR");
} catch (Exception e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
} else {
return rd.nextInt();
}
return 0;
}
ExecutorService ex = Executors.newFixedThreadPool(64);
System.out.println("Main thread: " + Thread.currentThread());
//Starting tasks
List<CompletableFuture> listTasks = new ArrayList<CompletableFuture>();
List<String> listErrors = new ArrayList<String>();
System.out.println("Starting threads...");
for (int i = 0; i < 10; i++) {
int counter = i;
//Add tasks to TaskQueue (taskList)
listTasks.add(
CompletableFuture.supplyAsync(()->{
//Simulate step 1
return 0;
},ex).thenApplyAsync(x -> {
//Simulate step 2
try {
Thread.sleep(2000);
} catch (InterruptedException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
return x + 1;
}, ex).thenApplyAsync(x -> {
//Simulate step 3 with a potential error
randomError();
return x + 1;
}, ex).thenApplyAsync(x -> {
//On error this shouldnt be executed?
//Simulate tep 4
try {
Thread.sleep(3000);
} catch (InterruptedException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
return x + 1;
}, ex).thenAcceptAsync( x -> {
//Simulate COMPLETION step 5
// listTasks.remove(counter);
}, ex).exceptionally(e -> {
listErrors.add("ERROR: " + counter);
System.out.println(e);
return null;
})
);
}
System.out.println("Done");
Now this piece of code creates 10 tasks, where every tasks consists of 5 steps. Now when Step 3 produces an Exception, step 4 still executes. Why? In my Serial monitor I see the error thrown but the CompletableFuture still completes OK. When I do 1 / 0;. this produces an error which gets caught by .exceptionally(). How is that catched and not the custom thrown Exception?
What I want is on error, stop the chain and go do .exceptionally() to handle the error.

An Efficient concurrent data structure to wait for a computed value (or timeout)

I'm hoping some concurrency experts can advise as I'm not looking to rewrite something that likely exists.
Picture the problem; I have a web connection that comes calling looking for their unique computed result (with a key that they provide in order to retrieve their result) - however the result may not have been computed YET so I would like for the connection to wait (block) for UP TO n seconds before giving up and telling them I don't (yet) have their result (computation time to calculate value is non deterministic). something like;
String getValue (String key)
{
String value = [MISSING_PIECE_OF_PUZZLE].getValueOrTimeout(key, 10, TimeUnit.SECONDS)
if (value == null)
return "Not computed within 10 Seconds";
else
return "Value was computed and was " + value;
}
and then have another thread (the computation threads)that is doing the calculations - something like ;
public void writeValues()
{
....
[MISSING_PIECE_OF_PUZZLE].put(key, computedValue)
}
In this scenario, there are a number of threads working in the background to compute the values that will ultimately be picked up by a web connections. The web connections have NO control or authority over what is computed and when the computations execute - as I've said - this is being done in a pool in the background but these thread can publish when the computation has completed (how they do is the gist of this question). The publish message maybe consumed or not - depending if any subscribers are interested in this computed value.
As these are web connections that will be blocking - i could potentially have 1000s of concurrent connections waiting (subscribing) for their specific computed value so such a solution needs to be very light on blocking resources. The closest i've came to is this SO question which I will explore further but wanted to check i'm not missing something blindly obvious before writing this myself?

I think you should use a Future it gives an ability to compute data in a separate thread and block for the requested time period while waiting for an answer. Notice how it throws an exception if more then 3 seconds passed
public class MyClass {
// Simulates havy work that takes 10 seconds
private static int getValueOrTimeout() throws InterruptedException {
TimeUnit.SECONDS.sleep(10);
return 123;
}
public static void main(String... args) throws InterruptedException, ExecutionException {
Callable<Integer> task = () -> {
Integer val = null;
try {
val = getValueOrTimeout();
} catch (InterruptedException e) {
throw new IllegalStateException("task interrupted", e);
}
return val;
};
ExecutorService executor = Executors.newFixedThreadPool(1);
Future<Integer> future = executor.submit(task);
System.out.println("future done? " + future.isDone());
try {
Integer result = future.get(3, TimeUnit.SECONDS);
System.out.print("Value was computed and was : " + result);
} catch (TimeoutException ex) {
System.out.println("Not computed within 10 Seconds");
}
}
}

After looking in changes in your question I wanted to suggest a different approach using BlockingQueue in such case the producer logic completely separated from the consumer so you could do something like this
public class MyClass {
private static BlockingQueue<String> queue = new ArrayBlockingQueue<>(10);
private static Map<String, String> dataComputed = new ConcurrentHashMap<>();
public static void writeValues(String key) {
Random r = new Random();
try {
// Simulate working for long time
TimeUnit.SECONDS.sleep(r.nextInt(11));
String value = "Hello there fdfsd" + Math.random();
queue.offer(value);
dataComputed.putIfAbsent(key, value);
} catch (InterruptedException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
}
private static String getValueOrTimeout(String key) throws InterruptedException {
String result = dataComputed.get(key);
if (result == null) {
result = queue.poll(10, TimeUnit.SECONDS);
}
return result;
}
public static void main(String... args) throws InterruptedException, ExecutionException {
String key = "TheKey";
Thread producer = new Thread(() -> {
writeValues(key);
});
Thread consumer = new Thread(() -> {
try {
String message = getValueOrTimeout(key);
if (message == null) {
System.out.println("No message in 10 seconds");
} else {
System.out.println("The message:" + message);
}
} catch (InterruptedException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
});
consumer.start();
producer.start();
}
}
With that said I have to agree with #earned that making the client thread to wait is not a good approach instead I would suggest using a WebSocket which gives you an ability to push data to the client when it is ready you can find lots of tutorials on WebSocket here is one for example ws tutorial

Future.get(5,TimeUnit.SECONDS) doesnt timeout after 5 seconds if native methods are used in Java

I am using Executor framework in my java code. I am facing an issue and i need clarification regarding the same.
Below is my java code,
ExecutorService executorObj = Executors.newFixedThreadPool(10);
String name = "default";
Future<String> futRes = executorObj.submit(new Callable<String>() {
#Override
public String call() {
computePropertyPage("");
return "Hello";
}
});
try {
System.out.println("waiting for name for 5 seconds maximum...");
return futRes.get(5,TimeUnit.SECONDS);
} catch (Exception e) {
System.out.println("Exception occurred : " + e);
return name;
}
In the above code, computePropertyPage() is a native method. Its properly linked with the java code. But the call to the function is not getting completed. Its stuck indefinitely. If the call is stuck for more than 5 seconds, i am expecting TimeOutException after 5 seconds. But i am not recieving it.
Instead of native method call, if i just add a sleep of 10 seconds as below,
try {
Thread.sleep(10000);
} catch (InterruptedException e) {
// TODO Auto-generated catch block
e.printStackTrace();
}
I get TimeOutException.
I just want to know if its the limitation from the java side that it dont have control on the native methods and thats the reason its not able to throw TimeOutException for futRes.get(5,TimeUnit.SECONDS);

Your method computePropertyPage completes in less than 5 seconds and return response. Since you aren't calling shutdown on ExecutorService it isn't terminating. Try calling executorObj.shutdown();