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How to make calling a Method as a background process in java

In my application , I have this logic when the user logins , it will call the below method , with all the symbols the user owns .
public void sendSymbol(String commaDelimitedSymbols) {
try {
// further logic
} catch (Throwable t) {
}
}
my question is that as this task of sending symbols can be completed slowly but must be completed , so is there anyway i can make this as a background task ??
Is this possible ??
please share your views .

Something like this is what you're looking for.
ExecutorService service = Executors.newFixedThreadPool(4);
service.submit(new Runnable() {
public void run() {
sendSymbol();
}
});
Create an executor service. This will keep a pool of threads for reuse. Much more efficient than creating a new Thread each time for each asynchronous method call.
If you need a higher degree of control over your ExecutorService, use ThreadPoolExecutor. As far as configuring this service, it will depend on your use case. How often are you calling this method? If very often, you probably want to keep one thread in the pool at all times at least. I wouldn't keep more than 4 or 8 at maximum.
As you are only calling sendSymbol once every half second, one thread should be plenty enough given sendSymbols is not an extremely time consuming routine. I would configure a fixed thread pool with 1 thread. You could even reuse this thread pool to submit other asynchronous tasks.
As long as you don't submit too many, it would be responsive when you call sendSymbol.

There is no really simple solution. Basically you need another thread which runs the method, but you also have to care about synchronization and thread-safety.
new Thread(new Runnable() {
public void run() {
sendSymbol(String commaDelimitedSymbols);
}
}).start();
Maybe a better way would be to use Executors
But you will need to case about thread-safety. This is not really a simple task.

It sure is possible. Threading is the way to go here. In Java, you can launch a new thread like this
Runnable backGroundRunnable = new Runnable() {
public void run(){
//Do something. Like call your function.
}};
Thread sampleThread = new Thread(backGroundRunnable);
sampleThread.start();
When you call start(), it launches a new thread. That thread will start running the run() function. When run() is complete, the thread terminates.
Be careful, if you are calling from a swing app, then you need to use SwingUtil instead. Google that up, sir.
Hope that works.

Sure, just use Java Threads, and join it to get the results (or other proper sync method, depends on your requirements)

You need to spawn a separate thread to perform this activity concurrently. Although this will not be a separate process, but you can keep performing other task while you complete sending symbols.

The following is an example of how to use threads. You simply subclass Runnable which contains your data and the code you want to run in the thread. Then you create a thread with that runnable object as the parameter. Calling start on the thread will run the Runnable object's run method.
public class MyRunnable implements Runnable {
private String commaDelimitedSymbols;
public MyRunnable(StringcommaDelimitedSymbols) {
this.commaDelimitedSymbols = commaDelimitedSymbols;
}
public void run() {
// Your code
}
}
public class Program {
public static void main(String args[]) {
MyRunnable myRunnable = new MyRunnable("...");
Thread t = new Thread(myRunnable)
t.start();
}
}

Stopping a Timer Task from within a Runnable thread when shutdown

I have a TimerTask that gets started as the first thing in my run() method of my Runnable class. I want to make sure that it gets stopped when the runnable is shutdown.
The runnable is started via an ExecutorService. I don't see a way to get a hook back to the runnable from the ExecutorService when shutdown() is called.
How can I make sure that the TimerTask is stopped?
Thanks

use ExecuterService.submit() to get back Future object once the task is completed.
ExecutorService.Submit()

The method call TimerTask.cancel() should do the desired.
Your Runnable.run method could be designed like this:
public void run() {
pingTask = new PingTimerTask(...);
try {
...
} finally {
/* this code even gets executed when an exception
* (for example an *InterruptedException*) was thrown:
*/
pingTask.cancel();
}
}

Is there a way to put tasks back in the executor queue

I have a series of tasks (i.e. Runnables) to be executed by an Executor.
Each task requires a certain condition to be valid in order to proceed. I would be interested to know if there is a way to somehow configure Executor to move tasks in the end of the queue and try to execute them later when the condition would be valid and the task be able to execute and finish.
So the behavior be something like:
Thread-1 take tasks from queue and run is called
Inside run the condition is not yet valid
Task stops and Thread-1 places task in the end of the queue and
gets next task to execute
Later on Thread-X (from thread pool) picks task again from queue condition is valid
and task is being executed

In Java 6, the ThreadPoolExecutor constructor takes a BlockingQueue<Runnable>, which is used to store the queued tasks. You can implement such a blocking queue which overrides the poll() so that if an attempt is made to remove and execute a "ready" job, then poll proceeds as normal. Otherwise the runnable is place at the back of the queue and you attempt to poll again, possibly after a short timeout.

Unless you have to have busy waiting, you can add a repeating task to a ScheduledExecutorService with an appropriate polling interval which you cancel or kill after it is "valid" to run.
ScheduleExecutorService ses = ...
ses.scheduleAtFixedRate(new Runnable() {
public void run() {
if (!isValid()) return;
preformTask();
throw new RuntimeException("Last run");
}
}, PERIOD, PERIOD, TimeUnit.MILLI_SECONDS);

Create the executor first.
You have several possibilites.
If I suppose that your tasks implement a simple interface to query their status (something like an enum with 'NeedReschedule' or 'Completed'), then implement a wrapper (implementing Runnable) for your tasks which will take the task and the executor as instanciation parameters. This wrapper will run the task it is bound to, check its status afterwards, and if necessary reschedule a copy of itself in the executor before terminating.
Alternatively, you could use an execption mechanism to signal the wrapper that the task must be rescheduled.
This solution is simpler, in the sense that it doesn't require a particular interface for you task, so that simple Runnable could be thrown in the system without trouble. However, exceptions incur more computation time (object construction, stack trace etc.).
Here's a possible implementation of the wrapper using the exception signaling mechanism.
You need to implement the RescheduleException class extending Throwable, which may be fired by the wrapped runnable (no need for a more specific interface for the task in this setup). You could also use a simple RuntimeException as proposed in another answer, but you will have to test the message string to know if this is the exception you are waiting for.
public class TaskWrapper implements Runnable {
private final ExecutorService executor;
private final Runnable task;
public TaskWrapper(ExecutorService e, Runnable t){
executor = e;
task = t;
}
#Override
public void run() {
try {
task.run();
}
catch (RescheduleException e) {
executor.execute(this);
}
}
Here's a very simple application firing up 200 wrapped tasks randomly asking a reschedule.
class Task implements Runnable {
#Override
public void run(){
if (Maths.random() > 0.5)
throw new RescheduleException();
}
}
public class Main {
public static void main(String[] args){
ExecutorService executor = Executors.newFixedThreadPool(10);
int i = 200;
while(i--)
executor.execute(new TaskWrapper(executor, new Task());
}
}
You could also have a dedicated thread to monitor the other threads results (using a message queue) and reschedule if necessary, but you lose one thread, compared to the other solution.

sequential event processing via executorservice

I have an event queue to process. A thread adds events to the queue.
I have created a runnable Task that in the run method does all which is necessary to process the event.
I have declared an Executors.newCachedThreadPool(); and I execute each Task.
public class EventHandler {
private static final ExecutorService handlers = Executors.newCachedThreadPool();
public void handleNextEvent(AnEvent event){
handlers.execute(new Task(evt));
}
public class Task implements Runnable{
#Override
public void run() {
//Event processing
}
}
public AnotherClass{
public void passEvent(AnEvent evt)//This is called by another thread
{
EventHandler.handleNextEvent(evt);
}
}
My problem is that if I call execute of the executor, my code will get the next event and run next runnable via the executor.
My purpose is to process next event from queue only after previous task has ended.
How would I know that the previous task has finished or not so that I know I can call handleNextEvent again?
Is having some status field updated by the Task a good idea?
Thanks

Executors.newCachedThreadPool() will create new threads on demand, so it's not what you want. You want something like Executors.newSingleThreadExecutor(), which will process the events one at a time, and queue up the rest.
See javadoc:
Creates an Executor that uses a single worker thread operating off an unbounded queue. (Note however that if this single thread terminates due to a failure during execution prior to shutdown, a new one will take its place if needed to execute subsequent tasks.) Tasks are guaranteed to execute sequentially, and no more than one task will be active at any given time.

I think Executors.newSingleThreadExecutor() and the submit() Method are the solution to your problem: http://download.oracle.com/javase/1.5.0/docs/api/java/util/concurrent/ExecutorService.html

Interrupting a thread from inside a runnable class? (java)

I am trying to set up a method inside a class that implements the runnable interface that will set the interrupt status of that class. The reason i want to be able to do it from inside the class is there is some other clean up stuff that i need to take care of as well, and i would like to be able to do it all by calling one method instead of calling, for example:
Gui gui = new Gui() // class that implements runnable
Thread guiThread = new Thread(gui, "gui thread");
guiThread.start()
...
...
guiThread.interrupt();
gui.cancel();
Currently my cancel code looks like this, however it isn't correctly setting the interrupt status of this thread.
public void cancel()
{
Thread.currentThread().interrupt();
// other clean up code here.
}
Any advice on if/how i could get this working?
Thanks.
EDIT: I when i tried to get the cancel working, i commented out the guiThread.interrupt(), so that i wasn't just setting the status the reseting the status.

You want to simply call interrupt() - this will interrupt the guiThread, and not the calling thread. E.g.
public void cancel()
{
guiThread.interrupt();
// other clean up code here.
}
However, are you sure you want the cleanup code running on the calling thread? It is usually best to have the thread itself do its own cleanup. You don't know when the thread is interrupted and ready to be cleaned up. You could add a join() after interrupt() if the thread will exit when interrupted, but this is generally less preferable to simply having the thread itself do the cleanup. (Later, you may not even have separate threads for these tasks, but use a thread pool. Putting cleanup in with the task will make this much easier to manage.)
Finally, please be aware that your thread doesn't automatically interrupt and stop what it's doing - you need to call methods that check the interrupt status, such as Object.wait(), Thread.sleep() etc. or you can explicitly check the interrupt status via Thread.isInterrupted().
EDIT: It thought cancel() was on the guiThread. It's not, so I've changed the interrupt call.

If you want to do everything inside of cancel, just add a Thread parameter to it and pass a guiThread to it.
void cancel ( final Thread guiThread )
{
guiThread.interrupt( );
guiThread.join( );
// other cleanup code
...
}
Caller code
Gui gui = new Gui() // class that implements runnable
Thread guiThread = new Thread(gui, "gui thread");
guiThread.start()
...
...
gui.cancel( guiThread );

guiThread.interrupt(); should work fine, but if you want to interrupt your thread from inner class method, you should do:
public void cancel() {
if (isAlive()) {
this.interrupt();
}
}
or
public void cancel() {
if (!isInterrupted()) {
interrupt();
}
}