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I need a thread that will only run once at a time, for example if it's called for the first time it will run, if it is called a second time, the first should stop completely and be allowed to die and a new one should take it's place.
I was ran a small test to see what was actually happening between each execution, the results show that the thread doesnt die but instead two threads are being executed alongside:
public class Test {
Worker worker = new Worker();
#Override
public void valid() {
try {
if (worker.running) {
worker.running = false;
worker.join();
}
} catch (InterruptedException iex) {
worker.running = false;
}
worker = new Worker();
worker.start();
}
private final class Worker extends Thread {
private volatile boolean running = true;
#Override
public void run() {
while (running) {
System.out.println(Thread.currentThread().getName());
try {
Thread.sleep(2000);
} catch (InterruptedException iex) {
Thread.currentThread().interrupt();
}
}
}
}
}
The results are as follows:
//Upon first execution
Thread-4
Thread-4
Thread-4
Thread-4
//When I execute it again
Thread-7
Thread-4
Thread-7
Thread-4
Thread-7
Thread-4
I've tried using ExecutorService or using while(!Thread.currentThread.isInterrupted) instead of the boolean flag, and got the same results.
How can I properly stop "Thread-4" and have only one of them running?
The actual issue comes from a thread that will cycle through a list and update things on discord chat by request, what the thread does is listen to input and change as suggested by kidney I'm trying to use executor.submit() and Future
private ExecutorService executor = Executors.newSingleThreadExecutor();
private Future<Void> worker;
private void setupImageThread() {
if (!worker.isDone() && !worker.isCancelled()) {
worker.cancel(true);
}
this.worker = (Future<Void>)executor.submit(new Cycler(Listener.queue(), this.links, Cel.cMember()));
ScheduledExecutorService ses = Executors.newScheduledThreadPool(1);
Runnable timeout = () -> {
executor.shutdown();
};
ses.schedule(timeout, 100, TimeUnit.SECONDS);
}
How can I go about initializing the Future for the first time it is created?
Using single thread executor service, I would try something like this:
public class Test {
private static ExecutorService executor = Executors.newSingleThreadExecutor();
Future<Void> worker;
public Test() {
this.worker = executor.submit(new Worker());
}
#Override
public void valid() {
if (!worker.isDone() && !worker.isCancelled()) {
worker.cancel(true); // Depends on whether you want to interrupt or not
}
this.worker = executor.submit(new Worker());
}
}
And make Worker implement Runnable.
It seems that the method valid can be called several times simultaneously. That means, every of those calls will wait to end only for one thread (Worker), whereas, every of them creates its own Worker and you lose a pointer to it, so it impossible to stop bunch of new created workers.
You should make the valid method synchronized: synchronized void valid() it will prevent creating many workers:
#Override
synchronized public void valid() {
...
}
One more thing to say. You put the while loop outside the try-catch, which is wrong: if the tread gets interrupted, the interruption doesn't kill it, because next interation gets started, so it should be like that:
#Override
public void run() {
try {
while (running) {
System.out.println(Thread.currentThread().getName());
Thread.sleep(2000);
}
catch (InterruptedException iex) {
//you don't need here Thread.currentThread().interrupt() call, because the thread has alredy been interrupted.
// The return statement here is also obsolete, I just use it as an example, but you can use empty braces.
return;
}
}
}
I need a solution to properly stop the thread in Java.
I have IndexProcessorclass which implements the Runnable interface:
public class IndexProcessor implements Runnable {
private static final Logger LOGGER = LoggerFactory.getLogger(IndexProcessor.class);
#Override
public void run() {
boolean run = true;
while (run) {
try {
LOGGER.debug("Sleeping...");
Thread.sleep((long) 15000);
LOGGER.debug("Processing");
} catch (InterruptedException e) {
LOGGER.error("Exception", e);
run = false;
}
}
}
}
And I have ServletContextListener class which starts and stops the thread:
public class SearchEngineContextListener implements ServletContextListener {
private static final Logger LOGGER = LoggerFactory.getLogger(SearchEngineContextListener.class);
private Thread thread = null;
#Override
public void contextInitialized(ServletContextEvent event) {
thread = new Thread(new IndexProcessor());
LOGGER.debug("Starting thread: " + thread);
thread.start();
LOGGER.debug("Background process successfully started.");
}
#Override
public void contextDestroyed(ServletContextEvent event) {
LOGGER.debug("Stopping thread: " + thread);
if (thread != null) {
thread.interrupt();
LOGGER.debug("Thread successfully stopped.");
}
}
}
But when I shutdown tomcat, I get the exception in my IndexProcessor class:
2012-06-09 17:04:50,671 [Thread-3] ERROR IndexProcessor Exception
java.lang.InterruptedException: sleep interrupted
at java.lang.Thread.sleep(Native Method)
at lt.ccl.searchengine.processor.IndexProcessor.run(IndexProcessor.java:22)
at java.lang.Thread.run(Unknown Source)
I am using JDK 1.6. So the question is:
How can I stop the thread and not throw any exceptions?
P.S. I do not want to use .stop(); method because it is deprecated.
Using Thread.interrupt() is a perfectly acceptable way of doing this. In fact, it's probably preferrable to a flag as suggested above. The reason being that if you're in an interruptable blocking call (like Thread.sleep or using java.nio Channel operations), you'll actually be able to break out of those right away.
If you use a flag, you have to wait for the blocking operation to finish and then you can check your flag. In some cases you have to do this anyway, such as using standard InputStream/OutputStream which are not interruptable.
In that case, when a thread is interrupted, it will not interrupt the IO, however, you can easily do this routinely in your code (and you should do this at strategic points where you can safely stop and cleanup)
if (Thread.currentThread().isInterrupted()) {
// cleanup and stop execution
// for example a break in a loop
}
Like I said, the main advantage to Thread.interrupt() is that you can immediately break out of interruptable calls, which you can't do with the flag approach.
In the IndexProcessor class you need a way of setting a flag which informs the thread that it will need to terminate, similar to the variable run that you have used just in the class scope.
When you wish to stop the thread, you set this flag and call join() on the thread and wait for it to finish.
Make sure that the flag is thread safe by using a volatile variable or by using getter and setter methods which are synchronised with the variable being used as the flag.
public class IndexProcessor implements Runnable {
private static final Logger LOGGER = LoggerFactory.getLogger(IndexProcessor.class);
private volatile boolean running = true;
public void terminate() {
running = false;
}
#Override
public void run() {
while (running) {
try {
LOGGER.debug("Sleeping...");
Thread.sleep((long) 15000);
LOGGER.debug("Processing");
} catch (InterruptedException e) {
LOGGER.error("Exception", e);
running = false;
}
}
}
}
Then in SearchEngineContextListener:
public class SearchEngineContextListener implements ServletContextListener {
private static final Logger LOGGER = LoggerFactory.getLogger(SearchEngineContextListener.class);
private Thread thread = null;
private IndexProcessor runnable = null;
#Override
public void contextInitialized(ServletContextEvent event) {
runnable = new IndexProcessor();
thread = new Thread(runnable);
LOGGER.debug("Starting thread: " + thread);
thread.start();
LOGGER.debug("Background process successfully started.");
}
#Override
public void contextDestroyed(ServletContextEvent event) {
LOGGER.debug("Stopping thread: " + thread);
if (thread != null) {
runnable.terminate();
thread.join();
LOGGER.debug("Thread successfully stopped.");
}
}
}
Simple answer:
You can stop a thread INTERNALLY in one of two common ways:
The run method hits a return subroutine.
Run method finishes, and returns implicitly.
You can also stop threads EXTERNALLY:
Call system.exit (this kills your entire process)
Call the thread object's interrupt() method *
See if the thread has an implemented method that sounds like it would work (like kill() or stop())
*: The expectation is that this is supposed to stop a thread. However, what the thread actually does when this happens is entirely up to what the developer wrote when they created the thread implementation.
A common pattern you see with run method implementations is a while(boolean){}, where the boolean is typically something named isRunning, it's a member variable of its thread class, it's volatile, and typically accessible by other threads by a setter method of sorts, e.g. kill() { isRunnable=false; }. These subroutines are nice because they allow the thread to release any resources it holds before terminating.
You should always end threads by checking a flag in the run() loop (if any).
Your thread should look like this:
public class IndexProcessor implements Runnable {
private static final Logger LOGGER = LoggerFactory.getLogger(IndexProcessor.class);
private volatile boolean execute;
#Override
public void run() {
this.execute = true;
while (this.execute) {
try {
LOGGER.debug("Sleeping...");
Thread.sleep((long) 15000);
LOGGER.debug("Processing");
} catch (InterruptedException e) {
LOGGER.error("Exception", e);
this.execute = false;
}
}
}
public void stopExecuting() {
this.execute = false;
}
}
Then you can end the thread by calling thread.stopExecuting(). That way the thread is ended clean, but this takes up to 15 seconds (due to your sleep).
You can still call thread.interrupt() if it's really urgent - but the prefered way should always be checking the flag.
To avoid waiting for 15 seconds, you can split up the sleep like this:
...
try {
LOGGER.debug("Sleeping...");
for (int i = 0; (i < 150) && this.execute; i++) {
Thread.sleep((long) 100);
}
LOGGER.debug("Processing");
} catch (InterruptedException e) {
...
Typically, a thread is terminated when it's interrupted. So, why not use the native boolean? Try isInterrupted():
Thread t = new Thread(new Runnable(){
#Override
public void run() {
while(!Thread.currentThread().isInterrupted()){
// do stuff
}
}});
t.start();
// Sleep a second, and then interrupt
try {
Thread.sleep(1000);
} catch (InterruptedException e) {}
t.interrupt();
ref- How can I kill a thread? without using stop();
For synchronizing threads I prefer using CountDownLatch which helps threads to wait until the process being performed complete. In this case, the worker class is set up with a CountDownLatch instance with a given count. A call to await method will block until the current count reaches zero due to invocations of the countDown method or the timeout set is reached. This approach allows interrupting a thread instantly without having to wait for the specified waiting time to elapse:
public class IndexProcessor implements Runnable {
private static final Logger LOGGER = LoggerFactory.getLogger(IndexProcessor.class);
private final CountDownLatch countdownlatch;
public IndexProcessor(CountDownLatch countdownlatch) {
this.countdownlatch = countdownlatch;
}
public void run() {
try {
while (!countdownlatch.await(15000, TimeUnit.MILLISECONDS)) {
LOGGER.debug("Processing...");
}
} catch (InterruptedException e) {
LOGGER.error("Exception", e);
run = false;
}
}
}
When you want to finish execution of the other thread, execute countDown on the CountDownLatch and join the thread to the main thread:
public class SearchEngineContextListener implements ServletContextListener {
private static final Logger LOGGER = LoggerFactory.getLogger(SearchEngineContextListener.class);
private Thread thread = null;
private IndexProcessor runnable = null;
private CountDownLatch countdownLatch = null;
#Override
public void contextInitialized(ServletContextEvent event) {
countdownLatch = new CountDownLatch(1);
Thread thread = new Thread(new IndexProcessor(countdownLatch));
LOGGER.debug("Starting thread: " + thread);
thread.start();
LOGGER.debug("Background process successfully started.");
}
#Override
public void contextDestroyed(ServletContextEvent event) {
LOGGER.debug("Stopping thread: " + thread);
if (countdownLatch != null)
{
countdownLatch.countDown();
}
if (thread != null) {
try {
thread.join();
} catch (InterruptedException e) {
LOGGER.error("Exception", e);
}
LOGGER.debug("Thread successfully stopped.");
}
}
}
Some supplementary info.
Both flag and interrupt are suggested in the Java doc.
https://docs.oracle.com/javase/8/docs/technotes/guides/concurrency/threadPrimitiveDeprecation.html
private volatile Thread blinker;
public void stop() {
blinker = null;
}
public void run() {
Thread thisThread = Thread.currentThread();
while (blinker == thisThread) {
try {
Thread.sleep(interval);
} catch (InterruptedException e){
}
repaint();
}
}
For a thread that waits for long periods (e.g., for input), use Thread.interrupt
public void stop() {
Thread moribund = waiter;
waiter = null;
moribund.interrupt();
}
I didn't get the interrupt to work in Android, so I used this method, works perfectly:
boolean shouldCheckUpdates = true;
private void startupCheckForUpdatesEveryFewSeconds() {
threadCheckChat = new Thread(new CheckUpdates());
threadCheckChat.start();
}
private class CheckUpdates implements Runnable{
public void run() {
while (shouldCheckUpdates){
System.out.println("Do your thing here");
}
}
}
public void stop(){
shouldCheckUpdates = false;
}
Brian Goetz in his book suggests to use Thread.currentThread().isInterrupted() flag and interrupt() method for cancellation.
Blocking library methods like sleep() and wait() try to detect when a thread has been interrupted and return early. They respond to interruption by clearing the interrupted status and throwing InterruptedException, indicating that the blocking operation completed early due to interruption.
The JVM makes no guarantees on how quickly a blocking method will detect interruption, but in practice this happens reasonably quickly.
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()); // blocking operation
}
} catch (InterruptedException consumed) {
// allow thread to exit
}
// any code here will still be executed
}
public void cancel() {
interrupt();
}
}
If you put any code after catch block, it will still be executed as we swallow InterruptedException to exit from run() gracefully.
Just a couple words on how interrupt() works.
If interrupt is called on non-blocked thread, interrupt() will not cause InterruptedException inside run() but will just change flag isInterrupted to true and thread will continue its work until it reaches Thread.currentThread().isInterrupted() check and exit from run().
If interrupt is called on blocked thread (sleep() or wait()was called, in our case it's put() that might block a thread) then isInterrupted will be set to false and InterruptedException will be thrown inside put().
I have a problem to understand Locks and Conditions in Java, i do not understand why my code ends up in a deadlock. My programm consists of a Mainthread and a Subthread, subthread is a member of Mainthread. Both threads run in an infinite loop, Subthread's loop is supposed to execute exactly one iteration as soon as it receives the signal for startCond from the Mainthread. Mainthread should wait for the finishCond signal to continue.
import java.util.concurrent.locks.Condition;
import java.util.concurrent.locks.Lock;
import java.util.concurrent.locks.ReentrantLock;
public class LockTest {
public static void main(String[] args) {
LockTest lt = new LockTest();
Mainthread m1 = lt.new Mainthread();
m1.start();
}
public class Mainthread extends Thread {
private Subthread sub = new Subthread();
public void run(){
System.out.println("Main start");
sub.start();
while(!isInterrupted()) {
try {
sub.getStartLock().lock();
sub.getStartCond().signal();
sub.getStartLock().unlock();
sub.getFinishLock().lock();
sub.getFinishCond().await();
sub.getFinishLock().unlock();
System.out.println("Main done");
} catch(InterruptedException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
}
}
}
public class Subthread extends Thread {
private Lock startLock = new ReentrantLock();
private Lock finishLock = new ReentrantLock();
private Condition startCond = startLock.newCondition();
private Condition finishCond = finishLock.newCondition();
public Lock getStartLock() {
return startLock;
}
public Lock getFinishLock() {
return finishLock;
}
public Condition getStartCond() {
return startCond;
}
public Condition getFinishCond() {
return finishCond;
}
public void run() {
System.out.println("Sub start");
while(!isInterrupted()) {
try {
startLock.lock();
startCond.await();
startLock.unlock();
finishLock.lock();
finishCond.signal();
finishLock.unlock();
System.out.println("Sub done");
} catch (InterruptedException e) {
// TODO Auto-generated catch block
e.printStackTrace();
}
}
}
}
}
My expected output would be:
Main done Sub done
(repeated as many times as it was executed in the loops).
Is there a way to solve this problem easier?
The main thread starts, it creates new sub thread and starts it but calling start on a thread does not mean that the thread would receive the processor imeddiatly and that its code will be actually executed.
Main, callss sub.getStartCond().signal(); but at this moment the sub thread is still not running so it misses this signal.
Main, awaits on the finishCond.
Sub starts executing its run method, it goes to the start condition and waits on it for ever.
The deadlock.
Signal wakes up only CURRENTLY waiting thread, it does not 'remember' previous calls.
Use Semaphore instead http://docs.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/api/java/util/concurrent/Semaphore.html
it has the semantic of 'counting the permits'.
There might be a more reliable way to do this. I would recommend using a CountDownLatch initialized with a count of 1, instead of a condition. Both the main and child threads can share the same instance of the latch (since the main owns the child that should be easy). The child will call await() and the main will call countDown() when you need to send the signal to the child. I recommend you make the latch private and final.
class ChildThread extends Thread {
private final CountDownLatch signal;
public ChildThread(CountDownLatch signal) {
this.signal = signal;
}
public void run() {
// The loop is necessary in case we get interrupted.
while (true) {
try {
signal.await();
break;
} catch(InterruptedException ignored) {
}
}
// do the work...
}
}
class MainThread extends Thread {
private final ChildThread child;
private final CountDownLatch signalToChild;
public MainThread() {
signalToChild = new CountDownLatch(1);
child = new ChildThread(signalToChild);
}
public void run() {
// I can start the child right away but I'd rather make sure it
// starts if the main thread has started.
child.start();
// prework
// let's signal the child
signalToChild.countDown();
// now the child is working, let's go on with the main thread work
}
}
This works because main and child thread actually share state, i.e., the latch. It does not matter if the main thread decrements the latch before the child thread is actually started, because the child will check this shared state to know if it can start.
I need a solution to properly stop the thread in Java.
I have IndexProcessorclass which implements the Runnable interface:
public class IndexProcessor implements Runnable {
private static final Logger LOGGER = LoggerFactory.getLogger(IndexProcessor.class);
#Override
public void run() {
boolean run = true;
while (run) {
try {
LOGGER.debug("Sleeping...");
Thread.sleep((long) 15000);
LOGGER.debug("Processing");
} catch (InterruptedException e) {
LOGGER.error("Exception", e);
run = false;
}
}
}
}
And I have ServletContextListener class which starts and stops the thread:
public class SearchEngineContextListener implements ServletContextListener {
private static final Logger LOGGER = LoggerFactory.getLogger(SearchEngineContextListener.class);
private Thread thread = null;
#Override
public void contextInitialized(ServletContextEvent event) {
thread = new Thread(new IndexProcessor());
LOGGER.debug("Starting thread: " + thread);
thread.start();
LOGGER.debug("Background process successfully started.");
}
#Override
public void contextDestroyed(ServletContextEvent event) {
LOGGER.debug("Stopping thread: " + thread);
if (thread != null) {
thread.interrupt();
LOGGER.debug("Thread successfully stopped.");
}
}
}
But when I shutdown tomcat, I get the exception in my IndexProcessor class:
2012-06-09 17:04:50,671 [Thread-3] ERROR IndexProcessor Exception
java.lang.InterruptedException: sleep interrupted
at java.lang.Thread.sleep(Native Method)
at lt.ccl.searchengine.processor.IndexProcessor.run(IndexProcessor.java:22)
at java.lang.Thread.run(Unknown Source)
I am using JDK 1.6. So the question is:
How can I stop the thread and not throw any exceptions?
P.S. I do not want to use .stop(); method because it is deprecated.
Using Thread.interrupt() is a perfectly acceptable way of doing this. In fact, it's probably preferrable to a flag as suggested above. The reason being that if you're in an interruptable blocking call (like Thread.sleep or using java.nio Channel operations), you'll actually be able to break out of those right away.
If you use a flag, you have to wait for the blocking operation to finish and then you can check your flag. In some cases you have to do this anyway, such as using standard InputStream/OutputStream which are not interruptable.
In that case, when a thread is interrupted, it will not interrupt the IO, however, you can easily do this routinely in your code (and you should do this at strategic points where you can safely stop and cleanup)
if (Thread.currentThread().isInterrupted()) {
// cleanup and stop execution
// for example a break in a loop
}
Like I said, the main advantage to Thread.interrupt() is that you can immediately break out of interruptable calls, which you can't do with the flag approach.
In the IndexProcessor class you need a way of setting a flag which informs the thread that it will need to terminate, similar to the variable run that you have used just in the class scope.
When you wish to stop the thread, you set this flag and call join() on the thread and wait for it to finish.
Make sure that the flag is thread safe by using a volatile variable or by using getter and setter methods which are synchronised with the variable being used as the flag.
public class IndexProcessor implements Runnable {
private static final Logger LOGGER = LoggerFactory.getLogger(IndexProcessor.class);
private volatile boolean running = true;
public void terminate() {
running = false;
}
#Override
public void run() {
while (running) {
try {
LOGGER.debug("Sleeping...");
Thread.sleep((long) 15000);
LOGGER.debug("Processing");
} catch (InterruptedException e) {
LOGGER.error("Exception", e);
running = false;
}
}
}
}
Then in SearchEngineContextListener:
public class SearchEngineContextListener implements ServletContextListener {
private static final Logger LOGGER = LoggerFactory.getLogger(SearchEngineContextListener.class);
private Thread thread = null;
private IndexProcessor runnable = null;
#Override
public void contextInitialized(ServletContextEvent event) {
runnable = new IndexProcessor();
thread = new Thread(runnable);
LOGGER.debug("Starting thread: " + thread);
thread.start();
LOGGER.debug("Background process successfully started.");
}
#Override
public void contextDestroyed(ServletContextEvent event) {
LOGGER.debug("Stopping thread: " + thread);
if (thread != null) {
runnable.terminate();
thread.join();
LOGGER.debug("Thread successfully stopped.");
}
}
}
Simple answer:
You can stop a thread INTERNALLY in one of two common ways:
The run method hits a return subroutine.
Run method finishes, and returns implicitly.
You can also stop threads EXTERNALLY:
Call system.exit (this kills your entire process)
Call the thread object's interrupt() method *
See if the thread has an implemented method that sounds like it would work (like kill() or stop())
*: The expectation is that this is supposed to stop a thread. However, what the thread actually does when this happens is entirely up to what the developer wrote when they created the thread implementation.
A common pattern you see with run method implementations is a while(boolean){}, where the boolean is typically something named isRunning, it's a member variable of its thread class, it's volatile, and typically accessible by other threads by a setter method of sorts, e.g. kill() { isRunnable=false; }. These subroutines are nice because they allow the thread to release any resources it holds before terminating.
You should always end threads by checking a flag in the run() loop (if any).
Your thread should look like this:
public class IndexProcessor implements Runnable {
private static final Logger LOGGER = LoggerFactory.getLogger(IndexProcessor.class);
private volatile boolean execute;
#Override
public void run() {
this.execute = true;
while (this.execute) {
try {
LOGGER.debug("Sleeping...");
Thread.sleep((long) 15000);
LOGGER.debug("Processing");
} catch (InterruptedException e) {
LOGGER.error("Exception", e);
this.execute = false;
}
}
}
public void stopExecuting() {
this.execute = false;
}
}
Then you can end the thread by calling thread.stopExecuting(). That way the thread is ended clean, but this takes up to 15 seconds (due to your sleep).
You can still call thread.interrupt() if it's really urgent - but the prefered way should always be checking the flag.
To avoid waiting for 15 seconds, you can split up the sleep like this:
...
try {
LOGGER.debug("Sleeping...");
for (int i = 0; (i < 150) && this.execute; i++) {
Thread.sleep((long) 100);
}
LOGGER.debug("Processing");
} catch (InterruptedException e) {
...
Typically, a thread is terminated when it's interrupted. So, why not use the native boolean? Try isInterrupted():
Thread t = new Thread(new Runnable(){
#Override
public void run() {
while(!Thread.currentThread().isInterrupted()){
// do stuff
}
}});
t.start();
// Sleep a second, and then interrupt
try {
Thread.sleep(1000);
} catch (InterruptedException e) {}
t.interrupt();
ref- How can I kill a thread? without using stop();
For synchronizing threads I prefer using CountDownLatch which helps threads to wait until the process being performed complete. In this case, the worker class is set up with a CountDownLatch instance with a given count. A call to await method will block until the current count reaches zero due to invocations of the countDown method or the timeout set is reached. This approach allows interrupting a thread instantly without having to wait for the specified waiting time to elapse:
public class IndexProcessor implements Runnable {
private static final Logger LOGGER = LoggerFactory.getLogger(IndexProcessor.class);
private final CountDownLatch countdownlatch;
public IndexProcessor(CountDownLatch countdownlatch) {
this.countdownlatch = countdownlatch;
}
public void run() {
try {
while (!countdownlatch.await(15000, TimeUnit.MILLISECONDS)) {
LOGGER.debug("Processing...");
}
} catch (InterruptedException e) {
LOGGER.error("Exception", e);
run = false;
}
}
}
When you want to finish execution of the other thread, execute countDown on the CountDownLatch and join the thread to the main thread:
public class SearchEngineContextListener implements ServletContextListener {
private static final Logger LOGGER = LoggerFactory.getLogger(SearchEngineContextListener.class);
private Thread thread = null;
private IndexProcessor runnable = null;
private CountDownLatch countdownLatch = null;
#Override
public void contextInitialized(ServletContextEvent event) {
countdownLatch = new CountDownLatch(1);
Thread thread = new Thread(new IndexProcessor(countdownLatch));
LOGGER.debug("Starting thread: " + thread);
thread.start();
LOGGER.debug("Background process successfully started.");
}
#Override
public void contextDestroyed(ServletContextEvent event) {
LOGGER.debug("Stopping thread: " + thread);
if (countdownLatch != null)
{
countdownLatch.countDown();
}
if (thread != null) {
try {
thread.join();
} catch (InterruptedException e) {
LOGGER.error("Exception", e);
}
LOGGER.debug("Thread successfully stopped.");
}
}
}
Some supplementary info.
Both flag and interrupt are suggested in the Java doc.
https://docs.oracle.com/javase/8/docs/technotes/guides/concurrency/threadPrimitiveDeprecation.html
private volatile Thread blinker;
public void stop() {
blinker = null;
}
public void run() {
Thread thisThread = Thread.currentThread();
while (blinker == thisThread) {
try {
Thread.sleep(interval);
} catch (InterruptedException e){
}
repaint();
}
}
For a thread that waits for long periods (e.g., for input), use Thread.interrupt
public void stop() {
Thread moribund = waiter;
waiter = null;
moribund.interrupt();
}
I didn't get the interrupt to work in Android, so I used this method, works perfectly:
boolean shouldCheckUpdates = true;
private void startupCheckForUpdatesEveryFewSeconds() {
threadCheckChat = new Thread(new CheckUpdates());
threadCheckChat.start();
}
private class CheckUpdates implements Runnable{
public void run() {
while (shouldCheckUpdates){
System.out.println("Do your thing here");
}
}
}
public void stop(){
shouldCheckUpdates = false;
}
Brian Goetz in his book suggests to use Thread.currentThread().isInterrupted() flag and interrupt() method for cancellation.
Blocking library methods like sleep() and wait() try to detect when a thread has been interrupted and return early. They respond to interruption by clearing the interrupted status and throwing InterruptedException, indicating that the blocking operation completed early due to interruption.
The JVM makes no guarantees on how quickly a blocking method will detect interruption, but in practice this happens reasonably quickly.
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()); // blocking operation
}
} catch (InterruptedException consumed) {
// allow thread to exit
}
// any code here will still be executed
}
public void cancel() {
interrupt();
}
}
If you put any code after catch block, it will still be executed as we swallow InterruptedException to exit from run() gracefully.
Just a couple words on how interrupt() works.
If interrupt is called on non-blocked thread, interrupt() will not cause InterruptedException inside run() but will just change flag isInterrupted to true and thread will continue its work until it reaches Thread.currentThread().isInterrupted() check and exit from run().
If interrupt is called on blocked thread (sleep() or wait()was called, in our case it's put() that might block a thread) then isInterrupted will be set to false and InterruptedException will be thrown inside put().
Supposed I have a class MyThread, which implements Runnable with a method dosomething():
class MyThread implements Runnable{
Object dosomething(Parameter p){ ... }
run(){...};
}
If I do:
main(){
MyThread my = new MyThread().run();
Object o = my.dosomething(p);
}
will dosomething be executed on myThread or in the main Thread?
How can I start the execution of dosomething on myThread from the main Thread and retrieve the returned Object?
main(){
MyThread my = new MyThread().run();
Object o = my.dosomething(p);
}
If you do that it won't compile: you're trying to assign the result of a void method, void run(), to an object of type MyThread.
Implementing runnable and calling run() will not cause the code to be executed in a separate thread unless you pass it to another thread (i.e. Tread t = new Thread(my);)
How can I start the execution of dosomething on myThread from the main Thread and retrieve the returned Object?
You do that by storing the result of doSomething() in a location where you can access it later.
class MyClass
{
public Object doSomething()
{
// return the object
return new Object();
}
}
class MyRunnable implements Runnable
{
private final MyClass _mc;
private final object _lock;
private final List<object> _results;
public MyRunnable(MyClass mc, List<object> results, object lock)
{
_mc = mc;
_lock = lock;
_results = results;
}
public void run()
{
synchronized(_lock)
{
_results.add(_mc.doSomething());
}
}
}
So now in main:
void main(){
MyClass mc = new MyClass();
List<object> results = new List<object>();
object lock = new object();
// Execute your thread and wait for it to complete
Thread t = new Thread(new MyRunnable(mc, results, lock ));
t.start();
t.join();
// Get the results
for(object result:results)
{
// do something with the result
}
}
This should give you an idea of what you're doing "wrong." A more realistic example would be if you spawn multiple threads, run them concurrently and then join on all of them until they all complete.
Sounds like you may want to consider Callables and Futures.
There's a decent explanation at http://www.vogella.de/articles/JavaConcurrency/article.html#futures
You can use delegate, for example.
new MyThread(callWhenFinishObject)
It'll be executed on the main thread, since it's that thread that calls the method. If you want dosomething to run in the separate thread, have it called within run() and store the result in a myThread field for later retrieval.
You might want to check class Future or other stuff in java.util.concurrent for some convenient way of waiting for the result to become available.
EDIT: if dosomething should only run until some condition is satisfied that must be flagged in the main thread, have run() block until the main thread somehow signals the other thread that it's okay to go on.
EDIT 2: here, someone confirm this is what's being asked:
package threadtest;
public class Main {
public static void main(final String[] args) {
final MyThread otherThread = new MyThread();
System.out.println("Main thread: I'm gonna start the other thread now...");
otherThread.start();
System.out.println("Main thread: there, hope it does well.");
try {
Thread.sleep(1000); //Lets main thread take a snooze...
} catch(InterruptedException ex) {
//whatever
}
System.out.println("Main thread: I'm gonna do some stuff in the meantime...");
try {
Thread.sleep(200); //Lets main thread take a snooze...
} catch(InterruptedException ex) {
//whatever
}
System.out.println("Main thread: maybe clean up the kitchen.");
try {
Thread.sleep(1000); //Lets main thread take a snooze...
} catch(InterruptedException ex) {
//whatever
}
System.out.println("Main thread: does other thread have something for me yet?");
if(otherThread.getResult() == null)
System.out.println("Main thread: nope, not yet.");
try {
Thread.sleep(500); //Lets main thread take a snooze...
} catch(InterruptedException ex) {
//whatever
}
System.out.println("Main thread: oh crap! I forgot to tell it that it may execute its method!");
otherThread.allowToExecute();
System.out.println("Main thread: phew... better keep checking now before it gets angry.");
while(otherThread.getResult() == null) {
try {
Thread.sleep(100); //Lets main thread take a snooze...
} catch(InterruptedException ex) {
//whatever
}
}
System.out.println("Main thread: there we go, it gave me a result. Rest in peace, other thread...");
}
private static class MyThread extends Thread {
private boolean mayExecuteDoSomething = false;
private Object result = null;
#Override
public void run() {
System.out.println("Other thread: whoa, someone started me!");
while(!mayExecuteDoSomething) {
try {
Thread.sleep(100); //I'm gonna sleep for a bit...
} catch(InterruptedException ex) {
//whatever
}
}
System.out.println("Other thread: alright, I'm allowed to execute my method!");
result = doSomething();
System.out.println("Other thread: there, did it. I'll just call it quits now.");
}
public void allowToExecute() {
mayExecuteDoSomething = true;
}
private Object doSomething() {
return new Object();
}
public Object getResult() {
return result;
}
}
}
This is a very crude approach to the issue. The basic concepts are there, though. In reality, you'd want to use stuff like Callable and Future for proper asynchronous computation.
That is not possible.
When you create a thread, it runs the code in run() and exits.
There is no way to inject code into a different thread; that would break the core execution model. (Within a thread, your code runs sequentially, with nothing in between)
If you want to, you can create a thread that listens for callback (Runnable instances) in a queue and executes them (like a message loop).
This is how the UI thread works.
Also, you aren't actually startign a thread; you need to write new Thread(someRunnable).start()