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Differences between tesing multi-thread in JUnit and Main function in Java

I tested a multi-thread program in JUnit and main function, source code as follows:
public class TestDaemon {
#Test
public void test() {
Thread thread = new Thread(() -> {
try {
Thread.sleep(1000);
System.out.println("hello");
} catch (InterruptedException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
});
// default false
thread.setDaemon(false);
thread.start();
}
public static void main(String[] args) {
Thread thread = new Thread(() -> {
try {
Thread.sleep(1000);
System.out.println("hello");
} catch (InterruptedException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
});
// default false
thread.setDaemon(false);
thread.start();
}
}
It didn't print hello string in the JUnit test example.
In the main function example, it could print hello in the console, but when I set the thread.setDaemon(true), it also can't print hello.
I know this is related to Daemon thred and User thread, but I don't know how to explain it.

A daemon thread is a thread that does not prevent the JVM from exiting when the program finishes but the thread is still running. An example for a daemon thread is the garbage collection.
When you run your code from main it creates both beans, thus two threads - daemon and non-daemon. As long as non-daemon thread is running, your application won't exit. So it works.
It's different when run from JUnit. As soon as JUnit test method completes (and it completes immediately after the Spring context is up), JUnit assumes your tests are done. Thus it kills all your threads and basically the whole JVM.
Remember your Waitor1 bean spawns a background thread which JUnit doesn't care about. As soon as you leave #Test method JUnit will just stop everything.

We can analyze the source code of JUnit, part of junit.textui.TestRunner as follows:
public static final int SUCCESS_EXIT = 0;
public static final int FAILURE_EXIT = 1;
public static final int EXCEPTION_EXIT = 2;
...
public static void main(String args[]) {
TestRunner aTestRunner = new TestRunner();
try {
TestResult r = aTestRunner.start(args);
if (!r.wasSuccessful()) {
System.exit(FAILURE_EXIT);
}
System.exit(SUCCESS_EXIT);
} catch (Exception e) {
System.err.println(e.getMessage());
System.exit(EXCEPTION_EXIT);
}
}
/**
* Returns whether the entire test was successful or not.
*/
public synchronized boolean wasSuccessful() {
return failureCount() == 0 && errorCount() == 0;
}
/**
* Gets the number of detected failures.
*/
public synchronized int failureCount() {
return fFailures.size();
}
/**
* Gets the number of detected errors.
*/
public synchronized int errorCount() {
return fErrors.size();
}
In this source code, we can conclude that the TestRunner excutes the Unit Test method, no need to wait it finish their tasks, then calls System.exit() method, so that terminates the program. So, it couldn't print hello in the console.
In the main function, because the new thread is not daemon thread, the main program will wait it finishing their tasks, then teminates the program. So,hellostring could be seen in the console.

Future cancel(boolean b) method not working when used in GUI application

I have the following code:
public class Cancelling {
public static void main(String args[]) {
ToBeCancelled tbc = new ToBeCancelled();
ForkJoinPool pool = new ForkJoinPool(1);
Future<?> future = pool.submit(tbc);
try {
Thread.sleep(3000);
} catch (InterruptedException ie) {}
future.cancel(true);
if (future.isCancelled())
System.out.println("The task has been cancelled");
}
}
With the ToBeCancelled class being:
public class ToBeCancelled implements Runnable {
public void run() {
try {
Thread.sleep(5000); // should throw exception here
} catch (Exception e) {
return; // should exit
}
System.out.println("I should never be able to print this");
}
}
The main thread should start, wait for 3 seconds, and then cancel the ToBeCancelled task by using future.cancel(true). It then should print The task has been cancelled, while the task never gets to print its message.
At least, this is what happens when I start it from console.
As I start it from a GUI application with a TextArea where the output is redirected to, that's not the case. The main method does print The task has been cancelled, but the task also prints I should never be able to print this.
This is driving me insane. From what I understand the task should receive its cancel command while on the Thread.sleep(5000) method, which would fire an exception that is consequently caught and makes the thread return. But it doesn't happen and yet the main thinks it has been cancelled. It's like the cancel method is completely ignored by the task.
I've tried everything I could think of, checking on the returned value of cancel, making the task wait longer, using Thread.currentThread().isInterrupted(), but nothing works.
I feel like I'm missing something really simple, but I just can't find what it is. Any idea?
In case anyone thinks it might be something on the GUI application, this is the method that starts the program:
public static void StartProgram(String name) {
try {
Method m = Class.forName(name).getDeclaredMethod("main",String[].class);
Object[] args = new Object[1];
String s[] = new String[2];
s[0] = tf1.getText();
s[1] = tf2.getText();
args[0] = s;
t = new Thread(new ProgramStarter(args, m));
t.start();
} catch (Exception e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
}
With ProgramStarter being:
public class ProgramStarter implements Runnable {
private Object[] args;
private Method m;
public ProgramStarter(Object args[], Method m) {
this.args = args;
this.m = m;
}
public void run() {
try {
m.invoke(null, args);
} catch (Exception e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
}
}

The problem is that your verification is wrong. You think that your code works when running from the console but in fact, it fails in all cases. When running from the console your main thread ends after the attempt to cancel the future and the JVM will terminate as there are only daemon threads left in the JVM. Due to the JVM termination you don’t notice that the cancellation did not work.
When adding a sleep at the end of your main method to delay the JVM termination you will notice that "I should never be able to print this" is printed when running from the console as well. So the only difference between GUI and console version is that the running Event Dispatch Thread prevents the JVM from terminating so you see that it doesn’t work.
The bottom line is: don’t use ForkJoinPool unless you have a reason for this.
Since you just want submit to a simple single-background-thread executor, you can create the executor using Executors.newFixedThreadPool(1). This has less unexpected behavior: it’s thread is non-daemon by default and it’s Future will cancel with interruption as expected.

Efficient exception handling for threads in java

How do we implement efficient exception handling when using threads.
I have a main program which creates 3 threads. How do we handle the exceptions for the exceptions thrown during the execution of thread?
Can we use the try/catch block or uncaughtexception. If so, can you please share some samples.
public class MyThreadTest {
public static void main(String[] args) {
Thread newThread = new Thread(new ThreadWithException());
// Add the handler to the thread object
newThread.setUncaughtExceptionHandler(new Thread.UncaughtExceptionHandler(){
#Override
public void uncaughtException(Thread t, Throwable e) {
System.out.println("ERROR! An exception occurred in " + t.getName() + ". Cause: " + e.getMessage());
}
});
newThread.start();
}
}
/**
* This thread throws a custom exception in its run method.
*/
class ThreadWithException implements Runnable {
#Override
public void run() {
throw new RuntimeException("Application Specific Exception!!");
}
}

Either you can use:
Thread#setUncaughtExceptionHandler to specify some code that is run when an exception is thrown (outside of normal program flow), or:
ExecutorService#invokeAll to run all of your blocks, and inspect the returned list for Future#get()'s throwing of ExecutionException. Another option is CompletionService, but this is slightly harder to use for such a simple case.

You can use try / catch block strategy:
Thread t = new Thread() {
#Override
public void run() {
try {
//..thread code
} catch (Exception e) {
}
}
};
It is easy to implement but in case of exception main thread of your application will never know what happened inside of child thread.
Better method would be to spawn threads using ExecutorService (as mentioned by FauxFaux). This will allow you to easily pass information about the error to main thread. Besides that, using ExecutorService allows you to write less code. You won't have to manage threads in your code but leave it for ExecutorService instead.

beacuse , recently, I have write a program with about 3 threads in order to fill a lot data from mysql and mongoDb to ElasticSearch. I share u my code.
I use java.util.concurrent.Executors.
First I have a main class. It calls
public void start() throws Exception {
this.logger.info("Main: Start the worker manually");
schedulerThreadPool = Executors.newScheduledThreadPool(this.maxNumberOfThread);
for (int i = 0; i < this.maxNumberOfThread; i++) {
Worker worker = new Worker();
long delay = i * this.sleepBetweenTaskStart;
schedulerThreadPool.scheduleAtFixedRate(worker, delay, this.minTimeBetweenEachTask, TimeUnit.MILLISECONDS);
}
}
And Worker implements Runnable and get Thread Id by below code.
this.threadId = Thread.currentThread().getId();
And just try catch in each Worker. Everything works normally.
#Override
public void run() {
try {
do...
} catch (Exception e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
}

Weird problem using JUnit in multi-thread environment

I meet a weired problem when using JUnit in multi-thread environment. The following code should fail, but it actually pass in eclipse.
public class ExampleTest extends TestCase {
private ExecutorService executor = Executors.newFixedThreadPool(10);
private volatile boolean isDone = false;
public void test() throws InterruptedException, ExecutionException {
executor.submit(new Runnable() {
#Override
public void run() {
try {
fail();
} finally {
isDone = true;
}
}
});
while (!isDone) {
Thread.sleep(1000);
}
}
}
And here'a another piece of code, here I use Future.get() to wait for thread stop, in this case it will fail.
public class ExampleTest extends TestCase {
private ExecutorService executor = Executors.newFixedThreadPool(10);
private volatile boolean isDone = false;
public void test() throws InterruptedException, ExecutionException {
Future future=executor.submit(new Runnable() {
#Override
public void run() {
try {
fail();
} finally {
isDone = true;
}
}
});
future.get();
}
}
I googled it and found that JUnit can not handle Multiple-thread unit testing,but what's the differences between these two pieces of code ? Thanks

JUnit cannot see the exceptions that occur in threads other than the thread in which the tests are running. In the first case, through an exception occurs by calling fail, it occurs in a separate thread run by the executor. Hence it is not visible to JUnit and the test passes.
In the second case, the same exception happens in the separate thread run by the executor but the exception is effectively "reported back" to the test thread when you call future.get. This is because future.get throws an ExecutionException if the computation of the future failed due to any exception. JUnit is able to see this exception and hence the test fails.

As #abhin4v has pointed out, the exception in the new thread gets swallowed. You could try providing your own fail-method that syncronises with the top-level thread very much like in your example with get().
But there's no need to use Futures, just write to a shared variable indicating failure and use newThreadId.join(). Apart from that, I'm not aware of any other way of solving this in plain JUnit.

Take a look at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDN_EYUvUq0 (starting at 17:09), it explain problems you can get with JUnit and threads.
I think, that in your case, get() throws a ExecutionException and that's why the second test fails. In the first testcase, jUnit doesn't see the exception.

There is also the interesting fact that Eclipse and IDEA can spawn a VM in their junit test runners and end up calling system.exit() on it. This means if you don't wait properly in the test (as in the case when you sleep above and hope the the task has completed), it can exit unexpectedly. Interesting, but not exactly what you were asking!
see this link for details...

How to write unit test for "InterruptedException"

In attempts of 100% code coverage, I came across a situation where I need to unit test block of code that catches an InterruptedException. How does one correctly unit test this? (JUnit 4 syntax please)
private final LinkedBlockingQueue<ExampleMessage> m_Queue;
public void addMessage(ExampleMessage hm) {
if( hm!=null){
try {
m_Queue.put(hm);
} catch (InterruptedException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
}
}

Right before invoking addMessage(), call Thread.currentThread().interrupt(). This will set the "interrupt" status flag on the thread.
If the interrupted status is set when the call to put() is made on a LinkedBlockingQueue, an InterruptedException will be raised, even if no waiting is required for the put (the lock is un-contended).
By the way, some efforts to reach 100% coverage are counter-productive and can actually degrade the quality of code.

Use a mocking library like Easymock and inject a mock LinkedBlockingQueue
i.e.
#Test(expected=InterruptedException.class)
public void testInterruptedException() {
LinkedBlockingQueue queue = EasyMock.createMock(LinkedBlockingQueue.class);
ExampleMessage message = new ExampleMessage();
queue.put(message);
EasyMock.expectLastCall.andThrow(new InterruptedException());
replay(queue);
someObject.setQueue(queue);
someObject.addMessage(msg);
}

As stated above just make use Thread.currentThread().interrupt() if you caught InterruptedException and isn't going to rethrow it.
As for the unit testing. Test this way: Assertions.assertThat(Thread.interrupted()).isTrue();. It both checks that the thread was interrupted and clears the interruption flag so that it won't break other test, code coverage or anything below.

Another option is to delegate dealing with InterruptedException to Guava's Uninterruptibles, so you don't need to write and test your custom code for it:
import static com.google.common.util.concurrent.Uninterruptibles.putUninterruptibly;
private final LinkedBlockingQueue<ExampleMessage> queue;
public void addMessage(ExampleMessage message) {
putUninterruptibly(queue, message);
}

One proper way could be customizing/injecting the ThreadFactory for the executorservice and from within the thread factory, you got the handle of the thread created, then you can schedule some task to interrupt the thread being interested.
Demo code part for the overwrited method "newThread" in ThreadFactory:
ThreadFactory customThreadfactory new ThreadFactory() {
public Thread newThread(Runnable runnable) {
final Thread thread = new Thread(runnable);
if (namePrefix != null) {
thread.setName(namePrefix + "-" + count.getAndIncrement());
}
if (daemon != null) {
thread.setDaemon(daemon);
}
if (priority != null) {
thread.setPriority(priority);
}
scheduledExecutorService.schedule(new Callable<String>() {
public String call() throws Exception {
System.out.println("Executed!");
thread.interrupt();
return "Called!";
}
},
5,
TimeUnit.SECONDS);
return thread;
}
}
Then you can use below to construct your executorservice instance:
ExecutorService executorService = Executors.newFixedThreadPool(3,
customThreadfactory);
Then after 5 seconds, an interrupt signal will be sent to the threads in a way each thread will be interrupted once in executorservice.

The example code in the question may be testable by calling Thread.currentThread().interrupt(). However, besides the mentioned problems various methods reset the interrupted flag. An extensive list is for example here: https://stackoverflow.com/a/12339487/2952093. There may be other methods as well.
Assuming waiting implemented as follows should be tested:
try {
TimeUnit.SECONDS.sleep(10);
} catch (InterruptedException ex) {
// Set the interrupt flag, this is best practice for library code
Thread.currentThread().interrupt();
throw new RuntimeException(ex);
}
A call to Thread.sleep itself clears the interrupted flag, so it cannot be set in advance. It can be tested using its own test thread as follows:
AtomicBoolean threadInterrupted = new AtomicBoolean(false);
Runnable toBeInterrupted = () -> {
try {
methodUnderTest();
} catch (RuntimeException unused) {
// Expected exception
threadInterrupted.set(true);
}
};
// Execute the in an operation test thread
Thread testThread = new Thread(toBeInterrupted);
testThread.start();
// When the test thread is waiting, interrupt
while (!threadInterrupted.get()) {
if (testThread.getState() == Thread.State.TIMED_WAITING) {
testThread.interrupt();
}
}
// Assert that the interrupted state is re-set after catching the exception
// Must be happening before thread is joined, as this will clear the flag
assertThat(testThread.isInterrupted(), is(true));
testThread.join();