Unexpected Behaviour with CompletableFuture - java

I am trying to create a simple example with async CompletableFuture's but I'm seeing some weird behaviour. The idea is that I kick off 2 async futures, one activates a boolean flag after a set time and the other polls that flag to release the value once thread 1 has changed that flag. Here's my code:
package completablefutures;
import java.util.concurrent.CompletableFuture;
public class CFMain throws InterruptedException {
public static void main(String... args) {
CF cf = new CF();
CompletableFuture.supplyAsync(cf::getCompletable).thenRun(() -> System.out.println("Post-future action"));
CompletableFuture.supplyAsync(cf::doSleep);
Thread.sleep(10000);
}
}
And the CF class:
package completablefutures;
public class CF {
private boolean valueIsSafe = false;
public boolean getCompletable() {
System.out.println("Fetching completable");
while(true) {
if(this.valueIsSafe) {
System.out.println("Completable fetched");
return true;
}
}
}
public boolean doSleep() {
System.out.println("Started sleeping");
try {
Thread.sleep(100);
} catch (InterruptedException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
this.valueIsSafe = true;
System.out.println("Finished sleeping");
return true;
}
}
When I let the program run it's course, it prints this:
Fetching completable
Started sleeping
Finished sleeping
Process finished with exit code 0
i.e. the future never completes in the 10s allocated. So what's going on here?

You are accessing the valueIsSafe from multiple threads, you must define this variable as volatile.
private volatile boolean valueIsSafe = false;
Using the volatile keyword will prevent threads from caching this value and force them to read the raw memory on every access.

This is because you are not using a thread safe data type, you can change your code to use AtomicBoolean here is an example of your code using AtomicBoolean:
public class CF {
private AtomicBoolean valueIsSafe = new AtomicBoolean (false);
public boolean getCompletable() {
System.out.println("Fetching completable");
while(true) {
if(this.valueIsSafe.get()) {
System.out.println("Completable fetched");
return true;
}
//System.out.println("doing something");
}
}
public boolean doSleep() {
System.out.println("Started sleeping");
try {
Thread.sleep(100);
} catch (InterruptedException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
this.valueIsSafe.set(true);
System.out.println("Finished sleeping");
return true;
}
}

Related

Ending console based multi threaded program gracefully

I have the following class, I usually run about 10 threads of it
public class MyClass implements Runnable {
private volatile Device device = null;
public MyClass(Device device) {
this.device = device;
}
#Override
public void run() {
while (true) { // <--- I do know that the "true" has to be changed to a Boolean
try {
Worker worker = new Worker();
worker.work();
System.out.println("Waiting 6 seconds!");
Thread.sleep(6 * 1000);
System.out.println("------------------------------------");
} catch (Exception e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
}
System.out.println("Thread in program ended!");
}
}
and in my main I start the threads like this
for (int i = 0; i < 2; i++) {
(new Thread(new MyClass())).start();
}
This is a console based program. What is the most reliable way to end the program? I think the best way would be to change while (true) to while (Boolean) and somehow change that Boolean for all threads, then when the loop ends, the program will end gracefully.
Here i'm ending it by waiting for a user input but you can change it to fire the stop method from anywhere
public static void main(String[] args) {
List<MyClass> myThreads = new ArrayList<>();
for (int i = 0; i < 2; i++) {
MyClass myClass = new MyClass();
Thread t = new Thread(myClass);
t.start();
myThreads.add(myClass);
}
Scanner in = new Scanner(System.in);
in.next();
for(MyClass t : myThreads){
t.stop();
}
}
class MyClass implements Runnable {
private Boolean flag;
public MyClass() {
this.flag = true;
}
#Override
public void run() {
while (flag) { // <--- I do know that the "true" has to be changed to a Boolean
try {
System.out.println("Waiting 6 seconds!");
Thread.sleep(6 * 1000);
System.out.println("------------------------------------");
} catch (Exception e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
}
System.out.println("Thread in program ended!");
}
public void stop(){
this.flag = false;
} }
The easy way would be to store all your threads in a set and make loop joining them at the end.
Be aware that this is not the most ortodox neither the most efficient way to do this.
In your main:
HashSet<Thread> threads = new HashSet();
for (int i = 0; i < 2; i++) {
Thread t = new Thread(new MyClass());
threads.add(t);
t.start();
}
for (Thread thread: threads) {
thread.join();
}
some more material
The following code uses an executor service to fix the number of threads that run at any time, it provides a Future object that also tells you when your thread has shutdown gracefully. They share a shutdown object as well. This offers you a bit more flexibility as the executor service can let you decide how many threads run at any one time gracefully.
First lets created a shared shutdown object that will notify all the threads it is time to shut down. There will be one instance of this and each thread will have a copy.
public static class Shutdown {
private boolean running;
public void shutdown() {
this.running = false;
}
public boolean isRunning() {
return running;
}
}
Next let me just create a dummy thread that does nothing more than sleep forever while it is running. Obviously you can simply replace this with your own thread to do something useful.
public static class MyClass implements Runnable {
final Shutdown shutdown;
public MyClass(Shutdown shutdown) {
this.shutdown = shutdown;
}
#Override
public void run() {
while (shutdown.isRunning()) {
try {
Thread.sleep(1);
} catch (InterruptedException e) {
System.out.println("Did not gracefully shut down");
}
}
System.out.println("Thread in program ended!");
}
}
}
Now for the main class which will run everything, this is where the magic happens.
public class Main {
public static void main(String[] args) {
//run exactly 10 threads at a time
ExecutorService executorService = Executors.newFixedThreadPool(10);
//this is how we shut it down
Shutdown globalShutdown = new Shutdown();
//start up the 10 threads
List<Future<?>> futures = new ArrayList<>();
for(int i = 0; i< 10; i++)
futures.add(executorService.submit(new MyClass(globalShutdown)));
//gracefully shut them down
globalShutdown.shutdown();
try {
//wait for them all to shutdown
for(Future<?> future : futures)
future.get();
} catch (InterruptedException e) {
throw new IllegalStateException("This should never happen");
} catch (ExecutionException e) {
throw new IllegalStateException("This should never happen");
}
//everything got shutdown!
}
in practice however you probably also want to handle the case where your thread may not end gracefully due to a bug. Rather than stall forever you might want to add a timeout and if that timeout is exceeded then simply forcibly terminate all remaining threads. To do that replace the above try-catch block with this.
try {
//wait for them all to shutdown
boolean timedout = false;
for(Future<?> future : futures) {
if( !timedout ) {
try {
future.get(30, TimeUnit.SECONDS);
} catch (TimeoutException e) {
timedout = true;
}
}
if(timedout) {
future.cancel(true);
}
}
} catch (InterruptedException | ExecutionException e) {
throw new IllegalStateException("This should never happen");
}

Java Thread interrupt() - how fast is it performed?

How much time does a Thread need to stop/disappear after its interrupt() method has been called?
Consider the following code:
public class MyThread {
public boolean flag = true;
public void run() {
while(flag) {
doSomething();
Thread.sleep(20);
}
}
}
void foo() {
MyThread t = new MyThread();
t.start();
Thread.sleep(100);
t.flag = false;
t.interrupt();
}
Does the assignment t.flag = false; have any effect? In other words, can a thread exit its run() method and terminate "normally" before it is interrupted?
similar question
For sharing data one needs volatile. Better would be to catch the InterruptedException.
public class MyThread {
public volatile boolean flag = true;
public void run() {
try {
while(flag) {
doSomething();
Thread.sleep(20);
}
} catch (InterruptedException ie) {
...
}
}
}
Check agains isInterrupted, anhd throw it again since when it returns true it consumes the message.
public class MyThread {
public void run() {
try {
while(!Thread.isInterrupted()) {
doSomething();
Thread.sleep(20);
}
} catch (InterruptedException ie) {
Thread.interrupt();
}
}
}
Making the flag unecessary.
If you want to use the flag and finish the code gracefully you don't need to use interrupt and catch the Exception.

Trying to Get Guarded Blocks to Work

I'm not understanding why my code is not working correctly. I expect the first Thread to wait for 4 seconds for the second Thread to set a shared boolean "joy" to true, then for the first Thread to print out "Joy has been achieved!".
When I run the code, I get this output:
"No Joy Yet..."
"Notifying Joy"
Then it freezes up and doesn't continue. If my understanding is correct, the notifyAll() method which is called from my notifyJoy() method should wake t1 up from its wait() and then, since the shared static boolean variable joy is now true, "Joy has been achieved!" should print to the console.
I'm working from Oracle's "The Java Tutorial", Chapter 13: here is a link to the specific section: Java Tutorial Website. I'm going off of what they have and making a little example but I can't seem to figure out what I'm doing wrong. Any help would be appreciated. Here is a complete copy of my code for your reference:
public class JoyTime {
public static void main(String[] args) {
JoyRider j1 = new JoyRider(false);
JoyRider j2 = new JoyRider(true);
Thread t1 = new Thread(j1, "J1");
Thread t2 = new Thread(j2, "J2");
t1.start();
try {
Thread.sleep(4000);
}
catch (InterruptedException e) {}
t2.start();
}
}
class JoyRider implements Runnable {
private static boolean joy = false;
private boolean flag;
public JoyRider(boolean flag) {
this.flag = flag;
}
#Override
public void run() {
synchronized(this) {
if (flag) {
notifyJoy();
}
else {
while (!joy) {
System.out.println("No Joy Yet...");
try {
this.wait();
}
catch (InterruptedException e) {}
}
System.out.println("Joy has been achieved!");
}
}
}
public synchronized void notifyJoy() {
System.out.println("Notifying Joy");
joy = true;
notifyAll();
}
}
You are calling wait() and notifyAll() on different monitors, and more specifically on the built-in monitors of the two different JoyRider instances.
If you introduce a dedicated lock object:
private static final Object LOCK = new Object();
and change your run() method a little:
synchronized (LOCK) {
if (flag) {
System.out.println("Notifying Joy");
JOY = true;
LOCK.notifyAll();
}
else {
while (!JOY) {
System.out.println("No Joy Yet...");
try {
LOCK.wait();
}
catch (InterruptedException e) {}
}
System.out.println("Joy has been achieved!");
}
}
you should be able to see all the expected prints in the correct order.

Two threads accessing same variable lock application

The following code was summed up the application, the application randomly was locked in
while (flag)
This code, running on my machine gets caught, in another machine he finished normally
The output generated here is:
INIT
END
before while
before flag
after flag
Code:
package threads;
public class Run implements Runnable {
private Thread thread;
private boolean flag = true;
public void init() {
thread = new Thread(this);
thread.setName("MyThread");
thread.start();
}
#Override
public void run() {
try {
int i = 0;
while (i < 1000) {
i++;
}
System.out.println("before flag");
flag = false;
System.out.println("after flag");
} catch (Exception e) {
e.printStackTrace();
} finally {
flag = false;
}
}
public void end() {
thread.interrupt();
thread = null;
System.out.println("before while");
while (flag) {
// try { Thread.sleep(100);} catch (InterruptedException e) {}
}
;
System.out.println("after while");
}
public static void main(String[] args) {
Run r = new Run();
System.out.println("INIT");
r.init();
System.out.println("END");
r.end();
}
}
Why when I change the value of flag the main thread does not pass through loop?
Change
private boolean flag = true;
to
private volatile boolean flag = true;
Without volatile, there is no guarantee the waiting thread needs to see the value get updated. HotSpot might even inline while(flag) to while(true) if the loop spins enough times.
See Memory Consistency Errors.
Also, what you're doing is called a spinlock. Normally you should use thread.join() instead. A spinlock is wasteful of resources because the waiting thread is actually working (checking a variable) the entire time it is supposed to be waiting.

How to stop the printing in thread A from thread B?

I have written some Java code, which will call a C interrupt handler.
In Java thread A, I use waitFor() to wait the interrupt coming and then execute reboot.
In Java thread B, I will loop printing a counter value and sleep several milliseconds.
And I hope when I detect the interrupt, and then stop the printing in thread B at once, but failed. In fact, the system detects the interrupt in time, but the printing continues for maybe 10 seconds and then reboot. Note: reboot occurs maybe 11 seconds after the interrupt(press a button), the hardware is not fast.
Below is my code, any suggestion? Thanks!
import java.io.IOException;
class ThreadTesterA implements Runnable
{
private int counter;
private String cmds[] = new String[1];
private Process pcs;
#Override
public void run()
{
cmds[0] = "./gpio-interrupt";
try {
pcs = Runtime.getRuntime().exec(cmds);
if(pcs.waitFor() != 0) {
System.out.println("error");
} else {
ThreadTesterB.setClosed(true);
}
} catch (IOException e) {
// TODO Auto-generated catch block
e.printStackTrace();
} catch (InterruptedException e) {
// TODO Auto-generated catch block
e.printStackTrace();
}
}
}
class ThreadTesterB implements Runnable
{
private int i;
private static boolean closed=false;
public static void setClosed(boolean closed)
{
closed = closed;
}
#Override
public void run()
{
// replace it with what you need to do
while (!closed) {
System.out.println("i = " + i);
i++;
try {
Thread.sleep(20);
} catch (InterruptedException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
}
System.out.println();
}
}
public class ThreadTester
{
public static void main(String[] args) throws InterruptedException
{
Thread t1 = new Thread(new ThreadTesterA());
Thread t2 = new Thread(new ThreadTesterB());
t1.start();
t1.setPriority(Thread.MAX_PRIORITY);
//t1.join(); // wait t1 to be finished
t2.start();
//t2.join();
}
}
You're writing and reading a boolean variable (closed) from 2 different threads without any kind of synchronization. There is thus no guarantee that what you wrote in one thread is visible in the other thread. You need to either
make the boolean variable volatile
access the boolean variable (writing and reading) using blocks or methods synchronized on the same lock
use an AtomicBoolean instead of a boolean
I would use the third solution.

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