Develop Reference

How do I kill a Runnable running in a Thread?

I have made a class called AbortableThread that is supposed to start and stop a thread when I want to. The class is relatively small since it just contains this code :
public class AbortableThread implements Runnable
{
private Thread worker;
private Runnable target;
public AbortableThread(Runnable target)
{
this.target = target;
}
public void start()
{
worker = new Thread(this);
worker.start();
}
public void stop()
{
worker.interrupt();
}
public void run()
{
while (!worker.isInterrupted())
target.run();
}
}
However, calling stop() does not stop the Thread. I think that's because target.run() runs on a separate thread, but I have no clue.

There isn’t a good way to stop a Runnable from outside (as a last resort there is stop, but that isn’t a good way).
A Runnable needs to be a good citizen and check for interruption itself, using Thread.currentThread().isInterrupted().
If the Runnable catches InterruptedException, the interrupt flag will be cleared; the Runnable needs to restore the interrupt flag by calling interrupt on the current thread.
In the posted code what happens is that the Runnable executes on the worker thread and the worker never gets a chance to check the interruption flag until the Runnable completes. Assuming the Runnable is something like
() -> { try {
Thread.sleep(100000L):
} catch (InterruptedException e) {}}
then the sleep would be cut short when the worker is interrupted, but the interrupt flag would be cleared so the Runnable would be executed again in the next iteration of the loop.

Try something like this:
public class AbortableThread implements Runnable
{
private final AtomicBoolean running = new AtomicBoolean(false);
private Thread worker;
private Runnable target;
public AbortableThread(Runnable target)
{
this.target = target;
}
public void start()
{
worker = new Thread(this);
worker.start();
}
public void stop()
{
running.set(false);
}
public void run()
{
running.set(true);
while (running.get()) {
try {
// make an small sleep
Thread.sleep(1);
} catch (InterruptedException e){
Thread.currentThread().interrupt();
System.out.println(
"Thread was interrupted, Failed to complete operation");
}
// do something here like the one in question; it must be none-blocking
target.run();
}
}
}
A complete example can be found here:
How to Kill a Java Thread

How can I implement this concurrent structure without the queue?

I have a situation in my application where events come in and the thread that handles them (signalling thread) must signal to another thread (working thread), thus far in an idle state, that it can run some code. Once the working thread is done it should wait to be signalled again. It is possible that events will arrive while the working thread is working. In this case it should move on and keep working immediately. One action by the working thread does enough work for any amount of incoming events, so there is no need to work once per event, just once as soon as possible after each event. Example correct behavior:
event comes in
worker thread starts work
worker thread finishes work
event comes in
worker thread starts work
event comes in
event comes in
worker thread finishes work
worker thread starts work
worker thread finishes work
4 events, 3 periods of work. It's an unfortunate but unavoidable requirement that the signalling thread cannot block while handling the event. I have implemented this at the moment using a BlockingQueue, which has the pointless side effect of filling itself up even though the contents are not interesting or even looked at. I was expecting to be able to make this work using CountDownLatch or CyclicBarrier or similar but I haven't been able to find a way. Here is my implementation:
import java.util.Random;
import java.util.concurrent.BlockingQueue;
import java.util.concurrent.ExecutorService;
import java.util.concurrent.Executors;
import java.util.concurrent.LinkedBlockingQueue;
public class Main {
private static final class MyBarrier {
private BlockingQueue<Boolean> queue = new LinkedBlockingQueue<>();
void await() throws InterruptedException {
queue.take();
queue.clear();
}
void signal() {
queue.add(true);
}
}
private static Random random = new Random(0);
private static void sleepForMax(int maxMillis) {
sleep(random.nextInt(maxMillis));
}
private static void sleep(long millis) {
try {
Thread.sleep(millis);
} catch (InterruptedException e) {
Thread.currentThread().interrupt();
}
}
public static void main(String[] args) {
MyBarrier myBarrier = new MyBarrier();
final ExecutorService singallingThread = Executors.newSingleThreadExecutor();
singallingThread.submit(() -> {
while (!Thread.currentThread().isInterrupted()) {
sleepForMax(1_000); // simulate period between events arriving
myBarrier.signal();
System.out.println("Signalling work to be done");
}
System.out.println("Thread interrupted");
});
final ExecutorService workingThread = Executors.newSingleThreadExecutor();
workingThread.submit(() -> {
while (!Thread.currentThread().isInterrupted()) {
try {
System.out.println("Waiting for work");
myBarrier.await();
} catch (InterruptedException e) {
break;
}
System.out.println("Doing work...");
sleepForMax(3_000); // simulate work being done
System.out.println("Work done");
}
System.out.println("Thread interrupted");
});
sleep(10_000);
singallingThread.shutdownNow();
workingThread.shutdownNow();
}
}
What's the better way to do this?

When I run your code with your implementation that uses Phaser, having changed the sleep times so that signalling occurs every 800 ms and processing takes 1000 ms, I get e.g. this output:
00008: Waiting for work
00808: Signalling work to be done
00808: Doing work... <-- worker starts working
01608: Signalling work to be done <-- signal came, so there's more work
01808: Work done
01809: Waiting for work <-- waits for work...
02409: Signalling work to be done <-- ...for 600 ms, until the next signal
02409: Doing work...
(The number to the left is milliseconds since start. Also, you can reproduce it with your code with random delays, but that's harder to reproduce and see there.)
If I understood it correctly, this is wrong. E.g. imagine what happens if signals stop coming.
Your code can probably work with this adjustment for your specific case:
private static final class MyBarrierWithPhaser {
private final Phaser phaser = new Phaser(1);
private int lastObservedPhase; // Phaser has initial phase 0
void await() throws InterruptedException {
// only works for 1 producer 1 worker; lastObservedPhase is kind of thread-local
lastObservedPhase = phaser.awaitAdvanceInterruptibly(lastObservedPhase);
}
void signal() {
phaser.arrive();
}
}
With this, the worker records the last phase it advanced to, and if the signal thread "arrives" before the next awaitAdvanceInterruptibly, then the Phaser phase gets updated, and when worker tries to wait using a stale phase, it will progress immediately; if the signal thread does not arrive before awaitAdvanceInterruptibly, then the worker will wait until the signal thread finally arrives.
Using simpler synchronization primitives, I can think of how to implement it using the synchronized-wait()-notify() mechanism:
private static final class MyBarrierWithSynchronized {
private boolean hasWork = false;
synchronized void await() throws InterruptedException {
while (!hasWork) {
wait();
}
hasWork = false;
}
synchronized void signal() {
hasWork = true;
notifyAll(); // or notify() if we are sure there is 1 signal thread and 1 worker thread
}
}
It has a couple of drawbacks: await() won't be interrupted if the thread is waiting to enter it. Also, some don't like synchronizing on this, I kept it so in order to be short. This can be rewritten using the java.util.concurrent.* analogues, this implementation will not have both of these drawbacks:
private static final class MyBarrierWithLock {
private boolean hasWorkFlag = false;
private final Lock lock = new ReentrantLock();
private final Condition hasWorkCond = lock.newCondition();
void await() throws InterruptedException {
lock.lockInterruptibly();
try {
while (!hasWorkFlag) {
hasWorkCond.await();
}
hasWorkFlag = false;
} finally {
lock.unlock();
}
}
void signal() {
lock.lock();
try {
hasWorkFlag = true;
hasWorkCond.signalAll(); // or signal() if we are sure there is 1 signal thread and 1 worker thread
} finally {
lock.unlock();
}
}
}

I'm experimenting with this, using java.util.concurrent.Phaser, which may work, but I haven't used Phaser before so I'm not sure.
private static final class MyBarrier2 {
private Phaser phaser = new Phaser(1);
void await() throws InterruptedException {
phaser.awaitAdvanceInterruptibly(phaser.getPhase());
}
void signal() {
phaser.arrive();
}
}

Java ThreadPoolExecutor release thread to thread pool

I have the following Runnable.run() method:
public void run() {
calculateStuff();
boolean ioSuccesful = IOforThisRunnable();
while(!ioSuccesful ) {
Thread.sleep(500); // alternative?
boolean ioSuccesful = IOforThisRunnable();
}
}
I want to execute this code in a ThreadPoolExecutor with a maximum number of Threads.
Now for my question:
Suppose my threadpool consist of 5 threads. In the current example 5 runnables would block execution for any additional Threads since Thread.sleep() does not release the thread?! (if IO is not succesful)
Is there any way to release the thread instead of using Thread.sleep() so that other runnables can start executing while another is waiting for IO?
So that in the worst case scenario all runnables would be sitting in while loop?

If your I/O work is blocking, then you have no choice: the thread has to be sitting around on the stack waiting for the blocking I/O to complete, so that thread can't be doing any other work.
What you want is to use non-blocking I/O, combined with something like Guava's ListenableFuture. This would enable you to do something like:
static ListenableFuture<Boolean> doIoWork() {
// ...
}
static ListenableFuture<Boolean> doIoWithRetry(
ListeningExecutorService executor) {
SettableFuture<Boolean> finalResult = SettableFuture.create();
calculateStuff();
doIoWithRetry(executor, finalResult);
return finalResult;
}
private static void doIoWithRetry(
final ListeningExecutorService executor,
final SettableFuture<Boolean> finalResult) {
final ListenableFuture<Boolean> pendingWork = doIoWork();
pendingWork.addListener(new Runnable() {
#Override public void run() {
// pendingWork is now complete
// (error checking elided here)
boolean ioSuccessful = pendingWork.get();
if (ioSuccessful) {
finalResult.set(true);
return;
}
doIoWithRetry(executor, finalWork);
}
}, executor);
}

Prevent multiple asynchronous calls from being in flight simultaneously without blocking

Here's essentially my problem:
while (true) {
if (previous 'doWorkAsync' method is not still in flight) {
doWorkAsync() // this returns immediately
}
wait set amount of time
}
A couple solutions come to mind for me:
Block until doWorkAsync() completes. This is not desirable to me for a few reasons.
It (potentially) results in waiting longer than I really needed to in the 'wait some set amount of time' line (e.g. if doWorkAsync takes 5 seconds, and the set amount of waiting time is 10 seconds, this will result in 15 seconds of waiting between calls, which isn't what I wanted). Of course, I could account for this by waiting less time, but somehow it just feels clunky.
It also ties up this thread unnecessarily. Instead of waiting for this task to come back, this thread could handle other work, like making config updates so the next call to doWorkAsync() has fresh data.
Use a gating mechanism. The easiest implementation that comes to mind is a boolean, set before calls to doWorkAsync(), and unset when doWorkAsync() completes. This is essentially what I'm doing now, but I'm not sure if it's an anti-pattern??
Is #2 the right way to go, or are there better ways to solve this problem?
EDIT: If it helps, doWorkAsync() returns a ListenableFuture (of guava).
The original question may not have been 100% clear. Here's the crux. If the async request finishes before the given timeout, this code will always work. However, if the async task takes SET_AMOUNT_OF_TIME + epsilon to complete, then this code will sleep twice as long as necessary, which is what I'm trying to avoid.

The simplest way to do this is using the wait and notifyAll methods already in Java. All you need to do is use an AtomicBoolean as a flag and block on it until the another Thread tells you something has changed.
The difference between that and your approach is that a blocked thread doesn't do anything whereas a polling thread uses CPU time.
Here is a simple example using two Threads - the Runnable "First" is submitted and it waits on done until the Runnable "Second" notifies that it has changed the flag.
public class App {
private static final AtomicBoolean done = new AtomicBoolean(false);
private static final class First implements Runnable {
#Override
public void run() {
while (!done.get()) {
System.out.println("Waiting.");
synchronized (done) {
try {
done.wait();
} catch (InterruptedException ex) {
return;
}
}
}
System.out.println("Done!");
}
}
private static final class Second implements Runnable {
#Override
public void run() {
try {
Thread.sleep(1000);
} catch (InterruptedException ex) {
return;
}
done.set(true);
synchronized (done) {
done.notifyAll();
}
}
}
public static void main(String[] args) throws InterruptedException {
final ExecutorService executorService = Executors.newFixedThreadPool(2);
executorService.submit(new First());
Thread.sleep(1000);
executorService.submit(new Second());
executorService.shutdown();
}
}
The sleep calls are just to show that a task of arbitrary length can take place, obviously they are not required.
The thing to note is that First prints "waiting" every time it enters the loop and, if you run the code, it only prints it once. The second thing to note is that First reacts to the changing of the flag immediately as it is told to awake and recheck when the flag is changed.
I have used return in the InterruptedException blocks, you may want to used Thread.currentThread().interrupt() instead so that the process doesn't die if it's spuriously interrupted.
A more advanced approach is to use Lock and Condition
public class App {
private static final Lock lock = new ReentrantLock();
private static final Condition condition = lock.newCondition();
private static final class First implements Runnable {
#Override
public void run() {
lock.lock();
System.out.println("Waiting");
try {
condition.await();
} catch (InterruptedException ex) {
return;
} finally {
lock.unlock();
}
System.out.println("Done!");
}
}
private static final class Second implements Runnable {
#Override
public void run() {
lock.lock();
try {
Thread.sleep(1000);
condition.signalAll();
} catch (InterruptedException ex) {
return;
} finally {
lock.unlock();
}
}
}
public static void main(String[] args) throws InterruptedException {
final ExecutorService executorService = Executors.newFixedThreadPool(2);
executorService.submit(new First());
Thread.sleep(1000);
executorService.submit(new Second());
executorService.shutdown();
}
}
In this situation First acquires a lock on the Lock object the immediately calls await on the Condition. The releases the lock and blocks on the Condition.
Second then acquires a lock on the Lock and calls signalAll on the Condition which awakes First.
First then reacquires the lock and continues execution, printing "Done!".
EDIT
The OP would like to call the method doWorkAsync with a specified period, if the method takes less time than the period then the process has to wait. If the method takes longer then the method should be called again immediately after.
The task needs to be stopped after a certain time.
At no point should the method be running more than once simultaneously.
The easiest approach would be to call the method from a ScheduledExecutorService, the Runnable would wrap the method and call get on the Future - blocking the scheduled executor until it is done.
This guarantees that the method is called with at least WAIT_TIME_BETWEEN_CALLS_SECS delay.
Then schedule another task that kills the first one after a set time.
final ScheduledExecutorService scheduledExecutorService = Executors.newSingleThreadScheduledExecutor();
final Future<?> taskHandle = scheduledExecutorService.scheduleAtFixedRate(new Runnable() {
#Override
public void run() {
final ListenableFuture<Void> lf = doWorkAsync();
try {
doWorkAsync().get();
} catch (InterruptedException ex) {
Thread.currentThread().interrupt();
} catch (ExecutionException ex) {
throw new RuntimeException(ex);
}
}
}, 0, WAIT_TIME_BETWEEN_CALLS_SECS, TimeUnit.SECONDS);
scheduledExecutorService.schedule(new Runnable() {
#Override
public void run() {
taskHandle.cancel(false);
}
}, TOTAL_TIME_SECS, TimeUnit.SECONDS);
The best solution would be call the raw Runnable on a ScheduledExecutorService rather than calling it on another executor and blocking on the ListenableFuture.

Think what you are looking for is The Reactor Pattern.
Is there a reason you don't want these things running at the same time? If what you want to do is chain them, you could use Futures. Akka has Composable Futures and mappable ones.

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();
}
}
}