Develop Reference

Creating a background Thread for sending email

I need to send a email during registration process , so for this reason i am using Java Mail API , this is working fine , but observed that
the email process is taking nearly 6 seconds (which is too long ) so Ajax call making the user wait too long for response
so for this reason i have decided to use background thread for sending email so the user need not wait for the Ajax call response (Jersey REST Web Service call)
My question is it a good practice to creating threads in a webapplication for every request ??
#Path("/insertOrUpdateUser")
public class InsertOrUpdateUser {
final static Logger logger = Logger.getLogger(InsertOrUpdateUser.class);
#GET
#Consumes("application/text")
#Produces("application/json")
public String getSalesUserData(#QueryParam(value = "empId") String empId
)
throws JSONException, SQLException {
JSONObject final_jsonobject = new JSONObject();
ExecutorService executorService = Executors.newFixedThreadPool(10);
executorService.execute(new Runnable() {
public void run() {
try {
SendEmailUtility.sendmail(emaildummy);
} catch (IOException e) {
logger.error("failed",e);
}
}
});
}
} catch (SQLException e) {
} catch (Exception e) {
}
finally {
}
return response;
}
}
And this is my Utility class for sending email
public class SendEmailUtility
{
public static String sendmail(String sendto)
throws IOException
{
String result = "fail";
Properties props_load = getProperties();
final String username = props_load.getProperty("username");
final String password = props_load.getProperty("password");
Properties props_send = new Properties();
props_send.put("mail.smtp.auth", "true");
props_send.put("mail.smtp.starttls.enable", "true");
props_send.put("mail.smtp.host", props_load.getProperty("mail.smtp.host"));
props_send.put("mail.smtp.port", props_load.getProperty("mail.smtp.port"));
Session session = Session.getInstance(props_send,
new javax.mail.Authenticator() {
#Override
protected PasswordAuthentication getPasswordAuthentication()
{
return new PasswordAuthentication(username, password);
}
});
try {
Message message = new MimeMessage(session);
message.setFrom(new InternetAddress(props_load.getProperty("setFrom")));
message.setRecipients(Message.RecipientType.TO, InternetAddress.parse(sendto));
message.setText("Some Text to be send in mail");
Transport.send(message);
result = "success";
} catch (MessagingException e) {
result = "fail";
logger.error("Exception Occured - sendto: " + sendto, e);
}
return result;
}
}
Could you please let me know if this is best practice to do in a web application ??

There are host of ways you can handle it, so it all depends on whether your application server has that much resources (memory, threads etc.) to handle your implementation, so it makes you best person to decide on which approach to go.
As such it is not bad practice to spawn parallel threads for doing something if it is justified by design, but typically you should go with controlled threads.
Please note that whether you use newSingleThreadExecutor() or newFixedThreadPool(nThreads), under-the-hoods there will always be a ThreadPoolExecutor object created.
My recommendation will be to use seconds option in below list i.e. "Controlled number of threads", and in that specify max thread count as you see fir.
One thread for each request
In this approach one thread will be created for each incoming request from GUI, so if you are getting 10 requests for inserting/updating user then 10 threads will be spawned which will send emails.
Downside of this approach is that there is no control on number of threads so you can end with StackOverflowException or may be memory issue.
Please make sure to shutdown your executor service else you will end up wasting JVM resources.
// inside your getSalesUserData() method
ExecutorService emailExecutor = Executors.newSingleThreadExecutor();
emailExecutor.execute(new Runnable() {
#Override
public void run() {
try {
SendEmailUtility.sendmail(emaildummy);
} catch (IOException e) {
logger.error("failed", e);
}
}
});
emailExecutor.shutdown(); // it is very important to shutdown your non-singleton ExecutorService.
Controlled number of threads
In this approach, some pre-defined number of threads will be present and those will process your email sending requirement. In below example I am starting a thread pool with max of 10 threads, then I am using a LinkedBlockingQueue implementation so this will ensure that if there are more than 10 requests and currently all my 10 threads are busy then excess of requests will be queued and not lost, this is the advantage you get with LinkedBlockingQueue implementation of Queue.
You can initialize you singleton ThreadPoolExecutor upon application server start, if there are no requests then no threads will be present so it is safe to do so. In fact I use similar configuration for my prod application.
I am using time to live seconds as 1 seconds so if a thread is ideal in JVM for more than 1 seconds then it will die.
Please note that since same thread pool is used for processing all you requests, so it should be singleton and do not shutdown this thread pool else your tasks will never be executed.
// creating a thread pool with 10 threads, max alive time is 1 seconds, and linked blocking queue for unlimited queuing of requests.
// if you want to process with 100 threads then replace both instances of 10 with 100, rest can remain same...
// this should be a singleton
ThreadPoolExecutor executor = new ThreadPoolExecutor(10, 10, 1, TimeUnit.SECONDS, new LinkedBlockingQueue<Runnable>());
// inside your getSalesUserData() method
executor.execute(new Runnable() {
#Override
public void run() {
try {
SendEmailUtility.sendmail(emaildummy);
} catch (IOException e) {
logger.error("failed", e);
}
}
});
Java's default cached thread pool
This approach is much like above, only that Java will initialize the ThreadPoolExecutor for you as ThreadPoolExecutor(0, Integer.MAX_VALUE, 60L, TimeUnit.SECONDS, new SynchronousQueue<Runnable>());
Here max number of threads will be Integer.MAX_VALUE, so threads will be created as needed and time to live will be 60 seconds.
If you want to use this way then below is the way.
// this should be a singleton
ExecutorService emailExecutor = Executors.newCachedThreadPool();
// from you getSalesUserData() method
emailExecutor.execute(new Runnable() {
#Override
public void run() {
try {
SendEmailUtility.sendmail(emaildummy);
} catch (IOException e) {
logger.error("failed", e);
}
}
});

Manually creating of ExecutorService on java web serer is bad idea. In your implementation for each request you create 10 threads.
Better solution is to use ManagedExecutorService (example) if you work with JEE7 or ThreadPoolTaskExecutor if you work with Spring(docs).
If you work with Tomcat you should read this thread.

The best practice is to use a single ExecutorService to provide a thread pool for all requests. You probably want to configure the ExecutorService with a non-zero, but limited, number of threads.
The idea here is that you will have some threads that are reused throughout the lifetime of the application. You get the added benefit that if there is a temporary slowdown (or halt) in sending emails, you don't end up with a growing number of threads Instead, you end up with a growing number of pieces of work (emails to send) to be executed, which is much less resource intensive than extra threads.

I am using Java EmailSender class.
I simply started a new thread to send mail because it was blocking the main thread and I was getting Time out an exception.
String link = "http://localhost:PORT/api/v1/registration/confirm?token=" +token;
//Sending mail in thread beacause it block main thread
new Thread(
() -> emailSender.sendMail(request.getEmail(),buildEmail(request.getFirstName(),
link))).start();

Signal one Java process from another

I need to send wakeup signal to a java process from another java process. Can I do it using signals? I tried to find some stuff on internet but couldnt get. Can anyone please help.

Assuming you mean two java threads the simplest approach is probably to use javas wait/notify mechanism. You can read more about how it works in the javadoc: http://docs.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/api/
Here is a sample program that demonstrates how it works. It will print the thread id alternatively as each thread runs.
public class Main {
public static void main(String[] args) {
final Object notifier = new Object(); //the notifying object
final long endingTime = System.currentTimeMillis() + 1000; //finish in 1 s
Runnable printThread = new Runnable(){
#Override
public void run() {
synchronized (notifier){
while(System.currentTimeMillis() < endingTime){
try {
notifier.wait();
System.out.println(Thread.currentThread().getId());
notifier.notify(); //notifies the other thread to stop waiting
} catch (InterruptedException e) {
e.printStackTrace(); //uh-oh
}
}
}
}
};
//start two threads
Thread t1 = new Thread(printThread);
Thread t2 = new Thread(printThread);
t1.start();
t2.start();
//notify one of the threads to print itself
synchronized (notifier){
notifier.notify();
}
//wait for the threads to finish
try {
t1.join();
t2.join();
} catch (InterruptedException e) {
e.printStackTrace(); //uh-oh
}
System.out.println("done");
}
}

I am confused on two process in same JVM part (Two class loaders ?). Either way, easiest way is to communicate over the shared local socket or a file.
You can even look at shared memory map.

Depends on how related the threads are. If they are related then a wait/notify setup like the one suggested in one of the answers to this previous question would do the trick.
If you have more a publish/subscribe method then I recommend Guava's EventBus as a simple way to communicate between threads.

java run services in parallel on the server

I have a service which process a request from a user.
And this service call another external back-end system(web services). but I need to execute those back-end web services in parallel. How would you do that? What is the best approach?
thanks in advance
-----edit
Back-end system can run requests in parallel, we use containers like (tomcat for development) and websphere finally for production.
So I'm already in one thread(servlet) and need to spawn two tasks and possibly run them in parallel as close together as possible.
I can imagine using either quartz or thread with executors or let it be on Servlet engine. What is proper path to take in such a scenario?

You can use Threads to run the requests in parallel.
Depending on what you want to do, it may make sense to build on some existing technology like Servlets, that do the threading for you

The answer is to run the tasks in separate threads.
For something like this, I think you should be using a ThreadPoolExecutor with a bounded pool size rather than creating threads yourself.
The code would look something like this. (Please note that this is only a sketch. Check the javadocs for details, info on what the numbers mean, etc.)
// Create the executor ... this needs to be shared by the servlet threads.
Executor exec = new ThreadPoolExecutor(1, 10, 120, TimeUnit.SECONDS,
new ArrayBlockingQueue(100), ThreadPoolExecutor.CallerRunsPolicy);
// Prepare first task
final ArgType someArg = ...
FutureTask<ResultType> task = new FutureTask<ResultType>(
new Callable<ResultType>() {
public ResultType call() {
// Call remote service using information in 'someArg'
return someResult;
}
});
exec.execute(task);
// Repeat above for second task
...
exec.execute(task2);
// Wait for results
ResultType res = task.get(30, TimeUnit.SECONDS);
ResultType res2 = task2.get(30, TimeUnit.SECONDS);
The above does not attempt to handle exceptions, and you need to do something more sophisticated with the timeouts; e.g. keeping track of the overall request time and cancelling tasks if we run over time.
This is not a problem that Quartz is designed to solve. Quartz is a job scheduling system. You just have some tasks that you need to be executed ASAP ... possibility with the facility to cancel them.

Heiko is right that you can use Threads. Threads are complex beasts, and need to be treated with care. The best solution is to use a standard library, such as java.util.concurrent. This will be a more robust way of managing parallel operations. There are performance benefits which coming with this approach, such as thread pooling. If you can use such a solution, this would be the recommended way.
If you want to do it yourself, here is a very simple way of executing a number of threads in parallel, but probably not very robust. You'll need to cope better with timeouts and destruction of threads, etc.
public class Threads {
public class Task implements Runnable {
private Object result;
private String id;
public Task(String id) {
this.id = id;
}
public Object getResult() {
return result;
}
public void run() {
System.out.println("run id=" + id);
try {
// call web service
Thread.sleep(10000);
result = id + " more";
} catch (InterruptedException e) {
// TODO do something with the error
throw new RuntimeException("caught InterruptedException", e);
}
}
}
public void runInParallel(Runnable runnable1, Runnable runnable2) {
try {
Thread t1 = new Thread(runnable1);
Thread t2 = new Thread(runnable2);
t1.start();
t2.start();
t1.join(30000);
t2.join(30000);
} catch (InterruptedException e) {
// TODO do something nice with exception
throw new RuntimeException("caught InterruptedException", e);
}
}
public void foo() {
Task task1 = new Task("1");
Task task2 = new Task("2");
runInParallel(task1, task2);
System.out.println("task1 = " + task1.getResult());
System.out.println("task2 = " + task2.getResult());
}
}

How to use MultiThreading in Android for an Event Handling Function (SensorListeners)

I have an event handling mechanism in my Android code to dump the sensor values in a file. Right now, I'm doing it in the main UI thread and hence the UI button responsiveness is very sluggish and I would like to speed it up.
How can I use multithreading on event handling functions? I'm trying to do it like this:
Create a global variable writeNow.
When the sensor value changes, set WriteNow = true
Create a thread in the class which looks like this:
Thread thread1 = new Thread()
{
public void run()
{
if(writeNow == true)
{
try
{
fos.write(s.getBytes());
}
catch (IOException e)
{
e.printStackTrace();
}
writeNow = false;
}
}
};
Thus, whenever writeNow is true, it will write to a File and then set WriteNow to false. However, I realize this is not the right approach, because the thread will execute once and then stop executing. When I tried a simple example with a while(true) and wait(), I found that the thread is interrupted millions of times.
So how do I enclose this event handling mechanism in a single thread, for speeding up a process?
Thanks!

You can try one of the following approaches:
It looks like you're trying to keep your writer thread running all the time; what you can do is spawn the thread only when you need it. Take a look at the example in the Android documentation for handling expensive operation in the UI thread.
Here is the example from that page:
public class MyActivity extends Activity {
[ . . . ]
// Need handler for callbacks to the UI thread
final Handler mHandler = new Handler();
// Create runnable for posting
final Runnable mUpdateResults = new Runnable() {
public void run() {
updateResultsInUi();
}
};
#Override
protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
[ . . . ]
}
protected void startLongRunningOperation() {
// Fire off a thread to do some work that we shouldn't do directly in the UI thread
Thread t = new Thread() {
public void run() {
mResults = doSomethingExpensive();
mHandler.post(mUpdateResults);
}
};
t.start();
}
private void updateResultsInUi() {
// Back in the UI thread -- update our UI elements based on the data in mResults
[ . . . ]
}
}
Since it doesn't look like you're doing anything in the UI thread once you finish writing you don't really need to bother with a Handler. But you might want to use it to display a Toast once the file has been written to.
On the other hand, if you still want to have a thread running, you might have it sleep() and periodically wake up and check the status of writeNow.
Thread thread1 = new Thread()
{
public void run()
{
while(true)
{
if(writeNow == true)
{
try
{
fos.write(s.getBytes());
}
catch (IOException e)
{
e.printStackTrace();
}
writeNow = false;
}
try
{
Thread.sleep(100); //sleep for 100 ms
}
catch (InterruptedException e)
{
Log.d('', e.getMessage());
}
}
}
};
Note that this will quickly get complicated and you might lose the bytes you want to write if your thread is sleeping when new data comes in and when it wakes up, even newer data has been received and has overwritten the previous bytes. You'd need some sort of a queue to manage that.
I'm not sure what you were doing with the wait() but that should've also worked and is in fact, the approach for problems involving a consumer and producer. The idea is to have your thread synchronize and wait() on a shared object (like perhaps your queue of bytes); a second thread will call notify() on the shared object when there is data available to write and the writer thread will be woken up. The writer thread should then write and reloop. Take a look at this tutorial.
As for the interruption of your thread, your thread may be interrupted for a number of reasons which is why it is good practice (especially when using wait()) to ensure that the condition you checked before you called wait() is still valid because you could've been woken because of either a call to notify()/notifyAll() or because of an interruption.

Handler handler = null;
handler = new Handler();
//create another class for and make consrtuctor as u want. so that u can use that effectively.
//for example.
popupIndex = new IndexThread(handler,head, target,ltp,price,IndexNifty.this,columsView,call);
popupIndex.setColumnViewexit(columsView);
handler.postDelayed(popupIndex, 300);
//another class
public IntraThread(Handler handler,String script,int target,int ltp,int price,Intraday intraday,TextView columsView,String call){
super();
this.target = target;
this.ltp = ltp;
this.price = price;
this.intraday = intraday;
this.columsView = columsView;
this.script= script;
this.handler= handler;
this.call= call;
}
public void run(){
// write ur code here....
}

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();
}
}
}