Java Thread Output data to Collection getting wrong results - java

I wrote a small program for testing java's Thread.
The problem is that I cannot get results as I predicted: 100 records every time.
I got random number of records. and after I remove the comment of this line:
//System.out.println(name + " Completed.");
I got 100 records as predicted every time.
In other words, I add a System.out.println(), everything works perfect.
Is that the java's bug or something I didn't noticed?
MyThread.java
public class MyThread extends Thread {
#Override
public void run() {
String name = Thread.currentThread().getName();
for (int i = 1; i <= 10; i++) {
if (i == 10) {
//System.out.println(name + " Completed.");
TestThread.al.add(name);
}
}
}
}
TestThread.java
import java.util.ArrayList;
public class TestThread {
public static ArrayList<String> al = new ArrayList<String>();
public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
ArrayList<MyThread> mt = new ArrayList<MyThread>();
//set
for (int i = 0; i < 100; i++) {
mt.add(new MyThread());
mt.get(i).setName("Worker " + (i + 1));
}
//start
for (int i = 0; i < 100; i++) {
mt.get(i).start();
}
//end
for (int i = 0; i < 100; i++) {
mt.get(i).join();
}
//result
for (int i = 0; i < al.size(); i++) {
System.out.println("Rank " + (i+1) + " : " + al.get(i));
}
}
}

the ArrayList is not thread-safe, maybe there exist a case: the two threads write data to the same positon of the arrayList ,you can use Vector instead for it is thread-safe.
for more information about thread-safe come here

cainiaofei has answered it, but wanted to add few more points:
Your ArrayList object al is causing the problem as it is being accessed(reads/writes) by many threads concurrently.
You need to know the below basic points:
Whenever many threads concurrently access an object ensure that you need to use thread-safe classes like Collections.synchronizedList() (prefer this) or Vector.
If you need thread safety for primitive types, you can make use of JDK's atomic package, for which you can look here.

Related

Adding more threads to executorservice only makes it slower

I have this code, where I have my own homemade array class, that I want to use to test the speed of some different concurrency tools in java
public class LongArrayListUnsafe {
private static final ExecutorService executor
= Executors.newFixedThreadPool(1);
public static void main(String[] args) {
LongArrayList dal1 = new LongArrayList();
int n = 100_000_000;
Timer t = new Timer();
List<Callable<Void>> tasks = new ArrayList<>();
tasks.add(() -> {
for (int i = 0; i <= n; i+=2){
dal1.add(i);
}
return null;
});
tasks.add(() -> {
for (int i = 0; i < n; i++){
dal1.set(i, i + 1);
}
return null;});
tasks.add(() -> {
for (int i = 0; i < n; i++) {
dal1.get(i);
}
return null;});
tasks.add(() -> {
for (int i = n; i < n * 2; i++) {
dal1.add(i + 1);
}
return null;});
try {
executor.invokeAll(tasks);
} catch (InterruptedException exn) {
System.out.println("Interrupted: " + exn);
}
executor.shutdown();
try {
executor.awaitTermination(1000, TimeUnit.MILLISECONDS);
} catch (Exception e){
System.out.println("what?");
}
System.out.println("Using toString(): " + t.check() + " ms");
}
}
class LongArrayList {
// Invariant: 0 <= size <= items.length
private long[] items;
private int size;
public LongArrayList() {
reset();
}
public static LongArrayList withElements(long... initialValues){
LongArrayList list = new LongArrayList();
for (long l : initialValues) list.add( l );
return list;
}
public void reset(){
items = new long[2];
size = 0;
}
// Number of items in the double list
public int size() {
return size;
}
// Return item number i
public long get(int i) {
if (0 <= i && i < size)
return items[i];
else
throw new IndexOutOfBoundsException(String.valueOf(i));
}
// Replace item number i, if any, with x
public long set(int i, long x) {
if (0 <= i && i < size) {
long old = items[i];
items[i] = x;
return old;
} else
throw new IndexOutOfBoundsException(String.valueOf(i));
}
// Add item x to end of list
public LongArrayList add(long x) {
if (size == items.length) {
long[] newItems = new long[items.length * 2];
for (int i=0; i<items.length; i++)
newItems[i] = items[i];
items = newItems;
}
items[size] = x;
size++;
return this;
}
public String toString() {
return Arrays.stream(items, 0,size)
.mapToObj( Long::toString )
.collect(Collectors.joining(", ", "[", "]"));
}
}
public class Timer {
private long start, spent = 0;
public Timer() { play(); }
public double check() { return (System.nanoTime()-start+spent)/1e9; }
public void pause() { spent += System.nanoTime()-start; }
public void play() { start = System.nanoTime(); }
}
The implementation of a LongArrayList class is not so important,it's not threadsafe.
The drivercode with the executorservice performs a bunch of operations on the arraylist, and has 4 different tasks doing it, each 100_000_000 times.
The problem is that when I give the threadpool more threads "Executors.newFixedThreadPool(2);" it only becomes slower.
For example, for one thread, a typical timing is 1.0366974 ms, but if I run it with 3 threads, the time ramps up to 5.7932714 ms.
What is going on? why is more threads so much slower?
EDIT:
To boil the issue down, I made this much simpler drivercode, that has four tasks that simply add elements:
ExecutorService executor
= Executors.newFixedThreadPool(2);
LongArrayList dal1 = new LongArrayList();
int n = 100_000_00;
Timer t = new Timer();
for (int i = 0; i < 4 ; i++){
executor.execute(new Runnable() {
#Override
public void run() {
for (int j = 0; j < n ; j++)
dal1.add(j);
}
});
}
executor.shutdown();
try {
executor.awaitTermination(1000, TimeUnit.MILLISECONDS);
} catch (Exception e){
System.out.println("what?");
}
System.out.println("Using toString(): " + t.check() + " ms");
Here it still does not seem to matter how many threads i allocate, there is no speedup at all, could this simply be because of overhead?
There are some problems with your code that make it hard to reason why with more threads the time increases.
btw
public double check() { return (System.nanoTime()-start+spent)/1e9; }
gives you back seconds not milliseconds, so change this:
System.out.println("Using toString(): " + t.check() + " ms");
to
System.out.println("Using toString(): " + t.check() + "s");
First problem:
LongArrayList dal1 = new LongArrayList();
dal1 is shared among all threads, and those threads are updating that shared variable without any mutual exclusion around it, consequently, leading to race conditions. Moreover, this can also lead to cache invalidation, which can increase your overall execution time.
The other thing is that you may have load balancing problems. You have 4 parallel tasks, but clearly the last one
tasks.add(() -> {
for (int i = n; i < n * 2; i++) {
dal1.add(i + 1);
}
return null;});
is the most computing-intensive task. Even if the 4 tasks run in parallel, without the problems that I have mention (i.e., lack of synchronization around the shared data), the last task will dictate the overall execution time.
Not to mention that parallelism does not come for free, it adds overhead (e.g., scheduling the parallel work and so on), which might be high enough that makes it not worth to parallelize the code in the first place. In your code, there is at least the overhead of waiting for the tasks to be completed, and also the overhead of shutting down the pool of executors.
Another possibility that would also explain why you are not getting ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException all over the place is that the first 3 tasks are so small that they are being executed by the same thread. This would also again make your overall execution time very dependent on the last task, the on the overhead of executor.shutdown(); and executor.awaitTermination. However, even if that is the case, the order of execution of tasks, and which threads will execute then, is typically non-deterministic, and consequently, is not something that your application should rely upon. Funny enough, when I changed your code to immediately execute the tasks (i.e., executor.execute) I got ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException all over the place.

Why are my threads not synchronizing?

I am trying to get a grasp on synchronizing threads, but I don't understand the problem I'm encountering.
Can someone please help me diagnose this or, even better, explain how I can diagnose this for myself?
import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.List;
import java.util.concurrent.CyclicBarrier;
public class Controller {
public static void main(String[] args) {
int numThreads = 0;
List<Thread> threads = new ArrayList<>();
if (args.length > 0) {
numThreads = Integer.parseInt(args[0]);
}
else {
System.out.println("No arguments");
System.exit(1);
}
CyclicBarrier barrier = new CyclicBarrier(numThreads);
int arr[][] = new int[10][10];
for (int i = 0; i < numThreads; i++) {
Thread newThread = new Thread(new ThreadableClass(barrier, arr));
threads.add(newThread);
}
for (Thread thread : threads) {
thread.start();
}
}
}
There is a main method (above) which accepts the number of threads I want as a command line argument. And there is a work-flow (below) which I am aiming to have increment all elements in a 2D array and print the array before the next thread has its chance to do the same:
import java.util.concurrent.BrokenBarrierException;
import java.util.concurrent.CyclicBarrier;
public class ThreadableClass implements Runnable {
private CyclicBarrier barrier;
private int arr[][];
public ThreadableClass(CyclicBarrier barrier, int[][] arr) {
this.barrier = barrier;
this.arr = arr;
}
#Override
public void run() {
long threadId = Thread.currentThread().getId();
System.out.println(threadId + " Starting");
for (int i = 0; i < 10; i++) {
changeArray();
try {
barrier.await();
} catch (InterruptedException | BrokenBarrierException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
}
}
private synchronized void changeArray() {
for (int i = 0; i < arr.length; i++) {
for (int j = 0; j < arr.length; j++) {
arr[i][j]++;
}
}
printArray();
}
private synchronized void printArray() {
System.out.println(Thread.currentThread().getId() + " is printing: ");
for (int i = 0; i < arr.length; i++) {
for (int j = 0; j < arr.length; j++) {
System.out.print(arr[i][j] + " ");
}
System.out.println();
}
}
}
Imagining the size of the array is 2x2, the expected output would look something like this:
1 1
1 1
2 2
2 2
3 3
3 3
4 4
4 4
...
...
(10 * numThreads)-1 (10 * numThreads)-1
(10 * numThreads)-1 (10 * numThreads)-1
(10 * numThreads) (10 * numThreads)
(10 * numThreads) (10 * numThreads)
Instead, all threads increment the array, and begin printing over one another.
There is nothing surprising about the result. You create n threads. You tell all threads to start. Each threads run() starts with:
long threadId = Thread.currentThread().getId();
System.out.println(threadId + " Starting");
...changeArray();
going to change that shared array. After writing to the array, you try to sync (on that barrier). Its too late then!
The point is: you have 10 different ThreadableClass instances. Each one is operating on its own! The synchronized key word ... simply doesn't provide any protection here!
Because: synchronized prevents two different threads calling the same method on the same object. But when you have multiple objects, and your threads are calling that method on those different objects, than there is no locking! What your code does boils down to:
threadA to call changeArray() .. on itself
threadB to call changeArray() .. on itself
threadC to call changeArray() .. on itself
...
In other words: you give n threads access to that shared array. But then you allow those n threads to enter changeArray() at the same time.
One simple fix; change
private synchronized void changeArray() {
to
private void changeArray() {
synchronized(arr) {
In other words: make sure that the n threads have to lock on the same monitor; in that case the shared array.
Alternatively: instead of making changeArray() a method in that ThreadableClass ... create a class
ArrayUpdater {
int arr[] to update
synchronized changeArray() ...
Then create one instance of that class; and give that same instance to each of your threads. Now the sync'ed method will prevent multiple threads to enter!
Because you are providing new instance for each theard using new ThreadableClass(barrier, arr), basically, all the theadrs are using different ThreadableClass objects, so your code synchronized methods run parallely, so you need to use a single ThreadableClass object as shown below:
ThreadableClass threadableClass= new ThreadableClass(barrier, arr);
for (int i = 0; i < numThreads; i++) {
Thread newThread = new Thread(threadableClass);
threads.add(newThread);
}
The important point is synchronization is all about providing access (i.e., key) to an object for a single thread at a time. If you are using a different object for each thread, threads don't wait for the key because each thread has got its own key (like in your example).

Thread.sleep blocks other Thread

I have a Output class which just prints everything that it gets to print.
public class Output {
private static List<String> textList = new ArrayList<>();
private static Output output = null;
private Output() {
Runnable task = () -> {
int lastIndex = 0;
while (true) {
while (lastIndex < textList.size()) {
System.out.println(lastIndex + " - " + textList.size() + ": " + textList.get(lastIndex));
outputText(textList.get(lastIndex));
lastIndex ++;
}
}
};
new Thread(task).start();
}
private static void outputText(String text) {
synchronized (System.out) {
System.out.println(text);
}
}
public static void say(String text) {
if (output == null) {
output = new Output();
}
textList.add(text);
}
}
When I add something to print, everything works fine:
for (int i = 0; i < 10; i++) {
Output.say("" + i);
}
But when I add a Thread.sleep to the loop it stops on the first output:
for (int i = 0; i < 10; i++) {
Output.say("" + i);
Thread.sleep(100);
}
How can I prevent it? I mean, I'm stopping with sleep just the main thread and not the separate thread.
When you don’t synchronize threads correctly, there is no guaranty that threads see updates made by other threads. They may either completely miss updates or see only parts of them, creating an entirely inconsistent result. Sometimes they may even appear to do the right thing. Without proper synchronization (in the sense of any valid construct specified to be thread safe), this is entirely unpredictable.
Sometimes, the chances of seeing a particular behavior are higher, like in your example. In most runs, the loop without sleep will complete before the other thread even starts its work, whereas inserting sleep raises the chance of lost updates after the second thread has seen values. Once the second thread has seen a value for textList.size(), it might reuse the value forever, evaluating lastIndex < textList.size() to false and executing the equivalent of while(true) { }.
It’s funny that the only place where you inserted a construct for thread safety, is the method outputText that is called by a single thread only (and printing to System.out is synchronized internally in most environments anyway).
Besides, it’s not clear why you are creating an object of type Output that has no relevance here, as all fields and methods are static.
Your code can be corrected and simplified to
public static void main(String[] args) throws InterruptedException {
List<String> textList = new ArrayList<>();
new Thread( () -> {
int index=0;
while(true) synchronized(textList) {
for(; index<textList.size(); index++)
System.out.println(textList.get(index));
}
}).start();
for (int i = 0; i < 10; i++) {
synchronized(textList) {
textList.add(""+i);
}
Thread.sleep(100);
}
}
though it still contains the issues of you original code of never terminating due to the infinite second thread and also burning the CPU with a polling loop. You should let the second thread wait for new items and add a termination condition:
public static void main(String[] args) throws InterruptedException {
List<String> textList = new ArrayList<>();
new Thread( () -> {
synchronized(textList) {
for(int index=0; ; index++) {
while(index>=textList.size()) try {
textList.wait();
} catch(InterruptedException ex) { return; }
final String item = textList.get(index);
if(item==null) break;
System.out.println(item);
}
}
}).start();
for (int i = 0; i < 10; i++) {
synchronized(textList) {
textList.add(""+i);
textList.notify();
}
Thread.sleep(100);
}
synchronized(textList) {
textList.add(null);
textList.notify();
}
}
This is still only an academic example that you shouldn’t use in real life code. There are classes for thread safe data exchange provided by the Java API removing the burden of implementing such things yourself.
public static void main(String[] args) throws InterruptedException {
ArrayBlockingQueue<String> queue = new ArrayBlockingQueue<>(10);
String endMarker = "END-OF-QUEUE"; // the queue does not allow null
new Thread( () -> {
for(;;) try {
String item = queue.take();
if(item == endMarker) break;// don't use == for ordinary strings
System.out.println(item);
} catch(InterruptedException ex) { return; }
}).start();
for (int i = 0; i < 10; i++) {
queue.put(""+i);
Thread.sleep(100);
}
queue.put(endMarker);
}

This thread program shows me different answers every time

This is a Java Program to Find The Number with Largest Divisors from 1-500000.
public class Medium2 {
static int count1 = 1;
static int count2 = 1;
static int big_count = 0;
static int big = 0;
Main method
public static void main(String[] args) {
Runnable runnable1 = new Runnable() {
public void run() {
The implementation goes here
for (int num = 1; num <= 500000; num++) {
for (int i = 2; i <= num; i++) {
if (num % i == 0) { //Actual Logic
count1++;
}
}
if (count1 > big_count) {
big_count = count1; //Number of Divisors
big = num; //Largest Number
}
count1 = 1;
}
}
};
And the thread execution
Thread thread1 = new Thread(runnable1); //Threads
Thread thread2 = new Thread(runnable1);
thread1.start();
thread2.start();
try {
thread1.join();
thread2.join();
} catch (InterruptedException ie) {
;
}
System.out.println("Biggest: " + big + "\nNumber of Divisors for " + big + " = " + big_count);
}
}
But it gives different answers every time. The actual answer is : 498960 and 200 Divisors
Concerning your goal, your implementation should probably have problems. Since big_count and big is common for both threads and don't have any protection when threads are trying to modify those, your program should create errors.
Other than that, you are also not utilizing 2 threads, since both threads are doing calculation from 1 to 500000.
Since your calculation logic seems ok, you should get your desired output when you try with single thread.
If you want it to do by two threads, you can easily try this. (just to verify, not the nicest way)
You should have big_count1, big1 and big_count2, big2. So that variables whose names end with '1' is only using by thread1 and variables whose names end with '2' is only using by thread2.
Assign thread1 to check from 1 to 250000 and thread2 to from 250001 to 500000.
After join() s, just compare big_count1 and big_count2, then you can deduce the final answer. :))

Java lock/concurrency issue when searching array with multiple threads

I am new to Java and trying to write a method that finds the maximum value in a 2D array of longs.
The method searches through each row in a separate thread, and the threads maintain a shared current maximal value. Whenever a thread finds a value larger than its own local maximum, it compares this value with the shared local maximum and updates its current local maximum and possibly the shared maximum as appropriate. I need to make sure that appropriate synchronization is implemented so that the result is correct regardless of how to computations interleave.
My code is verbose and messy, but for starters, I have this function:
static long sharedMaxOf2DArray(long[][] arr, int r){
MyRunnableShared[] myRunnables = new MyRunnableShared[r];
for(int row = 0; row < r; row++){
MyRunnableShared rr = new MyRunnableShared(arr, row, r);
Thread t = new Thread(rr);
t.start();
myRunnables[row] = rr;
}
return myRunnables[0].sharedMax; //should be the same as any other one (?)
}
For the adapted runnable, I have this:
public static class MyRunnableShared implements Runnable{
long[][] theArray;
private int row;
private long rowMax;
public long localMax;
public long sharedMax;
private static Lock sharedMaxLock = new ReentrantLock();
MyRunnableShared(long[][] a, int r, int rm){
theArray = a;
row = r;
rowMax = rm;
}
public void run(){
localMax = 0;
for(int i = 0; i < rowMax; i++){
if(theArray[row][i] > localMax){
localMax = theArray[row][i];
sharedMaxLock.lock();
try{
if(localMax > sharedMax)
sharedMax = localMax;
}
finally{
sharedMaxLock.unlock();
}
}
}
}
}
I thought this use of a lock would be a safe way to prevent multiple threads from messing with the sharedMax at a time, but upon testing/comparing with a non-concurrent maximum-finding function on the same input, I found the results to be incorrect. I'm thinking the problem might come from the fact that I just say
...
t.start();
myRunnables[row] = rr;
...
in the sharedMaxOf2DArray function. Perhaps a given thread needs to finish before I put it in the array of myRunnables; otherwise, I will have "captured" the wrong sharedMax? Or is it something else? I'm not sure on the timing of things..
I'm not sure if this is a typo or not, but your Runnable implementation declares sharedMax as an instance variable:
public long sharedMax;
rather than a shared one:
public static long sharedMax;
In the former case, each Runnable gets its own copy and will not "see" the values of others. Changing it to the latter should help. Or, change it to:
public long[] sharedMax; // array of size 1 shared across all threads
and you can now create an array of size one outside the loop and pass it in to each Runnable to use as shared storage.
As an aside: please note that there will be tremendous lock contention since every thread checks the common sharedMax value by holding a lock for every iteration of its loop. This will likely lead to poor performance. You'd have to measure, but I'd surmise that letting each thread find the row maximum and then running a final pass to find the "max of maxes" might actually be comparable or quicker.
From JavaDocs:
public interface Callable
A task that returns a result and may
throw an exception. Implementors define a single method with no
arguments called call.
The Callable interface is similar to Runnable, in that both are
designed for classes whose instances are potentially executed by
another thread. A Runnable, however, does not return a result and
cannot throw a checked exception.
Well, you can use Callable to calculate your result from one 1darray and wait with an ExecutorService for the end. You can now compare each result of the Callable to fetch the maximum. The code may look like this:
Random random = new Random(System.nanoTime());
long[][] myArray = new long[5][5];
for (int i = 0; i < 5; i++) {
myArray[i] = new long[5];
for (int j = 0; j < 5; j++) {
myArray[i][j] = random.nextLong();
}
}
ExecutorService executor = Executors.newFixedThreadPool(myArray.length);
List<Future<Long>> myResults = new ArrayList<>();
// create a callable for each 1d array in the 2d array
for (int i = 0; i < myArray.length; i++) {
Callable<Long> callable = new SearchCallable(myArray[i]);
Future<Long> callResult = executor.submit(callable);
myResults.add(callResult);
}
// This will make the executor accept no new threads
// and finish all existing threads in the queue
executor.shutdown();
// Wait until all threads are finish
while (!executor.isTerminated()) {
}
// now compare the results and fetch the biggest one
long max = 0;
for (Future<Long> future : myResults) {
try {
max = Math.max(max, future.get());
} catch (InterruptedException | ExecutionException e) {
// something bad happend...!
e.printStackTrace();
}
}
System.out.println("The result is " + max);
And your Callable:
public class SearchCallable implements Callable<Long> {
private final long[] mArray;
public SearchCallable(final long[] pArray) {
mArray = pArray;
}
#Override
public Long call() throws Exception {
long max = 0;
for (int i = 0; i < mArray.length; i++) {
max = Math.max(max, mArray[i]);
}
System.out.println("I've got the maximum " + max + ", and you guys?");
return max;
}
}
Your code has serious lock contention and thread safety issues. Even worse, it doesn't actually wait for any of the threads to finish before the return myRunnables[0].sharedMax which is a really bad race condition. Also, using explicit locking via ReentrantLock or even synchronized blocks is usually the wrong way of doing things unless you're implementing something low level (eg your own/new concurrent data structure)
Here's a version that uses the Future concurrent primitive and an ExecutorService to handle the thread creation. The general idea is:
Submit a number of concurrent jobs to your ExecutorService
Add the Future returned backed from submit(...) to a List
Loop through the list calling get() on each Future and aggregating the result
This version has the added benefit that there is no lock contention (or locking in general) between the worker threads as each just returns back the max for its slice of the array.
import java.util.concurrent.*;
import java.util.*;
public class PMax {
public static long pmax(final long[][] arr, int numThreads) {
ExecutorService pool = Executors.newFixedThreadPool(numThreads);
try {
List<Future<Long>> list = new ArrayList<Future<Long>>();
for(int i=0;i<arr.length;i++) {
// put sub-array in a final so the inner class can see it:
final long[] subArr = arr[i];
list.add(pool.submit(new Callable<Long>() {
public Long call() {
long max = Long.MIN_VALUE;
for(int j=0;j<subArr.length;j++) {
if( subArr[j] > max ) {
max = subArr[j];
}
}
return max;
}
}));
}
// find the max of each slice's max:
long max = Long.MIN_VALUE;
for(Future<Long> future : list) {
long threadMax = future.get();
System.out.println("threadMax: " + threadMax);
if( threadMax > max ) {
max = threadMax;
}
}
return max;
} catch( RuntimeException e ) {
throw e;
} catch( Exception e ) {
throw new RuntimeException(e);
} finally {
pool.shutdown();
}
}
public static void main(String args[]) {
int x = 1000;
int y = 1000;
long max = Long.MIN_VALUE;
long[][] foo = new long[x][y];
for(int i=0;i<x;i++) {
for(int j=0;j<y;j++) {
long r = (long)(Math.random() * 100000000);
if( r > max ) {
// save this to compare against pmax:
max = r;
}
foo[i][j] = r;
}
}
int numThreads = 32;
long pmax = pmax(foo, numThreads);
System.out.println("max: " + max);
System.out.println("pmax: " + pmax);
}
}
Bonus: If you're calling this method repeatedly then it would probably make sense to pull the ExecutorService creation out of the method and have it be reused across calls.
Well, that definetly is an issue - but without more code it is hard to understand if it is the only thing.
There is basically a race condition between the access of thread[0] (and this read of sharedMax) and the modification of the sharedMax in other threads.
Think what happens if the scheduler decides to let no let any thread run for now - so when you are done creating the threads, you will return the answer without modifying it even once! (of course there are other possible scenarios...)
You can overcome it by join()ing all threads before returning an answer.

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