I have an object that is being initialized in a separate thread. Initialization can take several seconds while a local DB is being populated.
SpecialAnalysis currentAnalysis = new SpecialAnalysis(params_here);
I'm trying to implement a "cancel" button, that sets the object's isCancelled boolean to true. What is the proper Java way to implement this?
while (currentAnalysis == null) {
}
currentAnalysis.cancel();
This method freezes the program as it appears to have entered a computationally inefficient loop. Is this a case where I could use Object.wait()?
My current bad/semi-successful solution is:
while (currentAnalysis == null) {
Thread.sleep(500);
}
currentAnalysis.cancel();
Thanks!
Firstly, yes Object.wait() and Object.notify() / Object.notifyAll() are what you need. Whether or not you use them directly is a different matter. Due to the ease of making mistakes programming directly with wait/notify it is generally recommended to use the concurrency tools added in Java 1.5 (see second approach below).
The traditional wait/notify approach:
Initialisation:
synchronized (lockObject) {
SpecialAnalysis currentAnalysis = new SpecialAnalysis(params_here);
lockObject.notifyAll();
}
In the 'cancel' thread:
synchronized (lockObject) {
while (currentAnalysis == null) {
try { lockObject.wait(); }
catch Exception(e) { } // FIXME: ignores exception
}
}
currentAnalysis.cancel();
Of course these could be synchronized methods instead of blocks. Your choice of lockObject will depend on how many 'cancel' threads you need etc. In theory it could be anything, i.e. Object lockObject = new Object(); as long as you are careful the correct threads have access to it.
Note that it is important to put the call to wait() in a while loop here due to the possibility of spurious wakeups coming from the underlying OS.
A simpler approach would be to use a CountDownLatch, sparing you from the nuts and bolts of wait()¬ify():
(I'm making a couple of assumptions here in order to suggest a possibly cleaner approach).
class AnalysisInitialiser extends Thread {
private CountDownLatch cancelLatch = new CountDownLatch(1);
private SpecialAnalysis analysis = null;
#Override
public void run() {
analysis = new SpecialAnalysis(params);
cancelLatch.countDown();
}
public SpecialAnalysis getAnalysis() {
cancelLatch.await();
return analysis;
}
}
Then in the thread that needs to send the cancel signal: (obviously you need to get hold of the AnalysisInitialiser object in some way)
analysisInit.getAnalysis.cancel();
No concurrency primitive boilerplate, yay!
i like this question so voted up..
you can do like below
do {
if(currentAnalysis != null){
currentAnalysis.cancel();
}
}
while (currentAnalysis == null)
here your do keeps checking the value of currentAnalysis and once its not null then it performs cancel else keeps looping and checking currentAnalysis value.
this is one better approach i am finding right now
Related
This might be a very naive of me, but I was always under assumption that the code example below would always work and not crash with a NullPointerException while using thread safe collections in Java. Unfortunately it would seem that the thread t2 is able to remove the item from the list in-between the call to containsKey() and get() methods below the two thread declarations. The commented section shows a way to handle this problem without ever getting a NullPointerException because it simply tests to see if the result from get() is null.
My question is, what's the right way to handle this problem in Java using thread safe collections? Sure I could use a mutex or a synchronized block, but doesn't this sort of defeat a lot of the benefits and ease of use surrounding thread safe collections? If I have to use a mutex or synchronized block, couldn't I just use non-thread safe collection instead? In addition, I've always heard (in academia) that checking code for null value is bad programming practice. Am I just crazy? Is there a simple answer to this problem? Thank you in advance.
package test;
import java.util.Map;
import java.util.concurrent.ConcurrentHashMap;
public class Test {
public static void main(String[] args) {
final Map<Integer, Integer> test = new ConcurrentHashMap<>();
Thread t1 = new Thread(new Runnable() {
#Override
public void run() {
while(true) {
test.put(0, 0);
Thread.yield();
}
}
});
Thread t2 = new Thread(new Runnable() {
#Override
public void run() {
while(true) {
test.remove(0);
Thread.yield();
}
}
});
t1.start();
t2.start();
while(true) {
if (test.containsKey(0)) {
Integer value = test.get(0);
System.out.println(value);
}
Thread.yield();
}
// OR
// while(true) {
// Integer value = test.get(0);
// if (value != null) {
// System.out.println(value);
// }
// Thread.yield();
// }
}
}
what's the right way to handle this problem in Java using thread safe collections?
Only perform one operation so it is atomic. It is faster as well.
Integer value = test.get(0);
if (value != null) {
System.out.println(value);
}
I've always heard (in academia) that checking code for null value is bad programming practice. Am I just crazy?
Possibly. I think checking for null, if a value can be null is best practice.
You're misusing thread-safe collections.
The thread-safe collections cannot possible prevent other code from running between containsKey() and get().
Instead, they provide you with additional thread-safe methods that will atomically check and get the element, without allowing other threads to interfere.
This means that you should never use a concurrent collection through the base collection interfaces (Map or List).
Instead, declare your field as a ConcurrentMap.
In your case, you can simply call get(), which will atomically return null if the key is not found.
There is no alternative to checking for null here. (unlike more elegant function languages, which use the Maybe monad instead)
This
if (test.containsKey(0)) {
Integer value = test.get(0);
System.out.println(value);
}
is still not atomic. A thread can add/remove after you've checked for containsKey.
You need to synchronize on a shared resource around that snippet. Or check for null after you get.
All operations in a ConcurrentHashMap are thread-safe, but they do not extend past method boundaries.
In addition, I've always heard (in academia) that checking code for null value is bad programming practice.
with a generic Map, when you write Integer i = map.get(0); then if i is null, you can't conclude that 0 is not in the map - it could be there but map to a null value.
However, with a ConcurrentHashMap, you have the guarantee that there are no null values:
Like Hashtable but unlike HashMap, this class does not allow null to be used as a key or value.
So using:
Integer i = map.get(0);
if (i != null) ...
is perfectly fine.
This piece of code:
synchronized (mList) {
if (mList.size() != 0) {
int s = mList.size() - 1;
for (int i = s; i > 0; i -= OFFSET) {
mList.get(i).doDraw(canv);
}
getHead().drawHead(canv);
}
}
Randomly throws AIOOBEs. From what I've read, the synchronized should prevent that, so what am I doing wrong?
Edits:
AIOOBE = Array Index Out Of Bounds Exception
The code's incomplete, cut down to what is needed. But to make you happy, OFFSET is 4, and just imagine that there is a for-loop adding a bit of data at the beginning. And a second thread reading and / or modifying the list.
Edit 2:
I've noticed it happens when the list is being drawn and the current game ends. The draw-thread hasn't drawn all elements when the list is emptied. Is there a way of telling the game to wait with emtying the list untill it's empty?
Edit 3:
I've just noticed that I'm not sure if this is a multi-threading problem. Seems I only have 2 threads, one for calculating and drawing and one for user input.. Gonna have to look into this a bit more than I thought.
What you're doing looks right... but that's all:
It doesn't matter on what object you synchronize, it needn't be the list itself.
What does matter is if all threads always synchronize on the same object, when accessing a shared resource.
Any access to SWING (or another graphic library) must happen in the AWT-Thread.
To your edit:
I've noticed it happens when the list is being drawn and the current game ends. The draw-thread hasn't drawn all elements when the list is emptied. Is there a way of telling the game to wait with emtying the list untill it's empty?
I think you mean "...wait with emptying the list until the drawing has completed." Just synchronize the code doing it on the same lock (i.e., the list itself in your case).
Again: Any access to a shared resource must be protected somehow. It seems like you're using synchronized just here and not where you're emptying the list.
The safe solution is to only allow one thread to create objects, add and remove them from a List after the game has started.
I had problems myself with random AIOOBEs erros and no synchornize could solve it properly plus it was slowing down the response of the user.
My solution, which is now stable and fast (never had an AIOOBEs since) is to make UI thread inform the game thread to create or manipulate an object by setting a flag and coordinates of the touch into the persistent variables.
Since the game thread loops about 60 times per second this proved to be sufficent to pick up the message from the UI thread and do something.
This is a very simple solution and it works great!
My suggestion is to use a BlockingQueue and I think you are looking for this solution also. How you can do it? It is already shown with an example in the javadoc :)
class Producer implements Runnable {
private final BlockingQueue queue;
Producer(BlockingQueue q) { queue = q; }
public void run() {
try {
while (true) { queue.put(produce()); }
} catch (InterruptedException ex) { ... handle ...}
}
Object produce() { ... }
}
class Consumer implements Runnable {
private final BlockingQueue queue;
Consumer(BlockingQueue q) { queue = q; }
public void run() {
try {
while (true) { consume(queue.take()); }
} catch (InterruptedException ex) { ... handle ...}
}
void consume(Object x) { ... }
}
class Setup {
void main() {
BlockingQueue q = new SomeQueueImplementation();
Producer p = new Producer(q);
Consumer c1 = new Consumer(q);
Consumer c2 = new Consumer(q);
new Thread(p).start();
new Thread(c1).start();
new Thread(c2).start();
}
}
The beneficial things for you are, you need not to worry about synchronizing your mList. BlockingQueue offers 10 special method. You can check it in the doc. Few from javadoc:
BlockingQueue methods come in four forms, with different ways of handling operations that cannot be satisfied immediately, but may be satisfied at some point in the future: one throws an exception, the second returns a special value (either null or false, depending on the operation), the third blocks the current thread indefinitely until the operation can succeed, and the fourth blocks for only a given maximum time limit before giving up.
To be in safe side: I am not experienced with android. So not certain whether all java packages are allowed in android. But at least it should be :-S, I wish.
You are getting Index out of Bounds Exception because there are 2 threads that operate on the list and are doing it wrongly.
You should have been synchronizing at another level, in such a way that no other thread can iterate through the list while other thread is modifying it! Only on thread at a time should 'work on' the list.
I guess you have the following situation:
//piece of code that adds some item in the list
synchronized(mList){
mList.add(1, drawableElem);
...
}
and
//code that iterates you list(your code simplified)
synchronized (mList) {
if (mList.size() != 0) {
int s = mList.size() - 1;
for (int i = s; i > 0; i -= OFFSET) {
mList.get(i).doDraw(canv);
}
getHead().drawHead(canv);
}
}
Individually the pieces of code look fine. They seam thread-safe. But 2 individual thread-safe pieces of code might not be thread safe at a higher level!
It's just you would have done the following:
Vector v = new Vector();
if(v.length() == 0){ v.length() itself is thread safe!
v.add("elem"); v.add() itself is also thread safe individually!
}
BUT the compound operation is NOT!
Regards,
Tiberiu
I'm new to Java so I have a simple question that I don't know where to start from -
I need to write a function that accepts an Action, at a multi-threads program , and only the first thread that enter the function do the action, and all the other threads wait for him to finish, and then return from the function without doing anything.
As I said - I don't know where to begin because,
first - there isn't a static var at the function (static like as in c / c++ ) so how do I make it that only the first thread would start the action, and the others do nothing ?
second - for the threads to wait, should I use
public synchronized void lala(Action doThis)
{....}
or should i write something like that inside the function
synchronized (this)
{
...
notify();
}
Thanks !
If you want all threads arriving at a method to wait for the first, then they must synchronize on a common object. It could be the same instance (this) on which the methods are invoked, or it could be any other object (an explicit lock object).
If you want to ensure that the first thread is the only one that will perform the action, then you must store this fact somewhere, for all other threads to read, for they will execute the same instructions.
Going by the previous two points, one could lock on this 'fact' variable to achieve the desired outcome
static final AtomicBoolean flag = new AtomicBoolean(false); // synchronize on this, and also store the fact. It is static so that if this is in a Runnable instance will not appear to reset the fact. Don't use the Boolean wrapper, for the value of the flag might be different in certain cases.
public void lala(Action doThis)
{
synchronized (flag) // synchronize on the flag so that other threads arriving here, will be forced to wait
{
if(!flag.get()) // This condition is true only for the first thread.
{
doX();
flag.set(true); //set the flag so that other threads will not invoke doX.
}
}
...
doCommonWork();
...
}
If you're doing threading in any recent version of Java, you really should be using the java.util.concurrent package instead of using Threads directly.
Here's one way you could do it:
private final ExecutorService executor = Executors.newCachedThreadPool();
private final Map<Runnable, Future<?>> submitted
= new HashMap<Runnable, Future<?>>();
public void executeOnlyOnce(Runnable action) {
Future<?> future = null;
// NOTE: I was tempted to use a ConcurrentHashMap here, but we don't want to
// get into a possible race with two threads both seeing that a value hasn't
// been computed yet and both starting a computation, so the synchronized
// block ensures that no other thread can be submitting the runnable to the
// executor while we are checking the map. If, on the other hand, it's not
// a problem for two threads to both create the same value (that is, this
// behavior is only intended for caching performance, not for correctness),
// then it should be safe to use a ConcurrentHashMap and use its
// putIfAbsent() method instead.
synchronized(submitted) {
future = submitted.get(action);
if(future == null) {
future = executor.submit(action);
submitted.put(action, future);
}
}
future.get(); // ignore return value because the runnable returns void
}
Note that this assumes that your Action class (I'm assuming you don't mean javax.swing.Action, right?) implements Runnable and also has a reasonable implementation of equals() and hashCode(). Otherwise, you may need to use a different Map implementation (for example, IdentityHashMap).
Also, this assumes that you may have multiple different actions that you want to execute only once. If that's not the case, then you can drop the Map entirely and do something like this:
private final ExecutorService executor = Executors.newCachedThreadPool();
private final Object lock = new Object();
private volatile Runnable action;
private volatile Future<?> future = null;
public void executeOnlyOnce(Runnable action) {
synchronized(lock) {
if(this.action == null) {
this.action = action;
this.future = executor.submit(action);
} else if(!this.action.equals(action)) {
throw new IllegalArgumentException("Unexpected action");
}
}
future.get();
}
public synchronized void foo()
{
...
}
is equivalent to
public void foo()
{
synchronized(this)
{
...
}
}
so either of the two options should work. I personally like the synchronized method option.
Synchronizing the whole method can sometimes be overkill if there is only a certain part of the code that deals with shared data (for example, a common variable that each thread is updating).
Best approach for performance is to only use the synchronized keyword just around the shared data. If you synchronized the whole method when it is not entirely necessarily then a lot of threads will be waiting when they can still do work within their own local scope.
When a thread enters the synchronize it acquires a lock (if you use the this object it locks on the object itself), the other will wait till the lock-acquiring thread has exited. You actually don't need a notify statement in this situation as the threads will release the lock when they exit the synchronize statement.
I made a simple synchronized Stack object in Java, just for training purposes.
Here is what I did:
public class SynchronizedStack {
private ArrayDeque<Integer> stack;
public SynchronizedStack(){
this.stack = new ArrayDeque<Integer>();
}
public synchronized Integer pop(){
return this.stack.pop();
}
public synchronized int forcePop(){
while(isEmpty()){
System.out.println(" Stack is empty");
try {
wait();
} catch (InterruptedException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
}
return this.stack.pop();
}
public synchronized void push(int i){
this.stack.push(i);
notifyAll();
}
public boolean isEmpty(){
return this.stack.isEmpty();
}
public synchronized void pushAll(int[] d){
for(int i = 0; i < d.length; i++){
this.stack.push(i);
}
notifyAll();
}
public synchronized String toString(){
String s = "[";
Iterator<Integer> it = this.stack.iterator();
while(it.hasNext()){
s += it.next() + ", ";
}
s += "]";
return s;
}
}
Here are my questions:
Is it OK not to synchronize the isEmtpy() method? I figured it was because even if another Thread is modifying the stack at the same time, it would still return a coherent result (there is no operation that goes into a isEmpty state that is neither initial or final). Or is it a better design to have all the methods of a synchronized object synchronized?
I don't like the forcePop() method. I just wanted to create a thread that was able to wait until an item was pushed into the stack before poping an element, and I thought the best option was to do the loop with the wait() in the run() method of the thread, but I can't because it throws an IllegalMonitorStatException. What is the proper method to do something like this?
Any other comment/suggestion?
Thank you!
Stack itself is already synchronized, so it doesn't make sense to apply synchronization again (use ArrayDeque if you want a non-synchronized stack implementation)
It's NOT OK (aside from the fact from the previous point), because lack of synchronization may cause memory visibility effects.
forcePop() is pretty good. Though it should pass InterruptedException without catching it to follow the contract of interruptable blocking method. It would allow you to interrupt a thread blocked at forcePop() call by calling Thread.interrupt().
Assuming that stack.isEmpty() won't need synchronization might be true, but you are relying on an implementation detail of a class that you have no control over.
The javadocs of Stack state that the class is not thread-safe, so you should synchronize all access.
I think you're mixing idioms a little. You are backing your SynchronizedStack with java.util.Stack, which in turn is backed by java.util.Vector, which is synchronized. I think you should encapsulate the wait() and notify() behaivor in another class.
The only problem with not synchronizing isEmpty() is that you don't know what's happening underneath. While your reasoning is, well, reasonable, it assumes that the underlying Stack is also behaving in a reasonable manner. Which it probably is in this case, but you can't rely on it in general.
And the second part of your question, there's nothing wrong with a blocking pop operation, see this for a complete implementation of all the possible strategies.
And one other suggestion: if you're creating a class that is likely to be re-used in several parts of an application (or even several applications), don't use synchronized methods. Do this instead:
public class Whatever {
private Object lock = new Object();
public void doSomething() {
synchronized( lock ) {
...
}
}
}
The reason for this is that you don't really know if users of your class want to synchronize on your Whatever instances or not. If they do, they might interfere with the operation of the class itself. This way you've got your very own private lock which nobody can interfere with.
The Following class DoStuff starts a thread and syncs to protect the listener object from being accessed when null.
Now when accessing the DoStuff class function setOnProgressListener() externally I'm having issues because the call is getting held for a long time before it exits the function call. I'm not sure why this happens? I seems as if the synchronization has queued up a lot of calls? Any input on this would help!
I'm essentially passing null to the listener because I no longer wish to get updated for this status. I do this as part of my process to kill the DoStuff Thread.
Thanks!
public class DoStuff extends Runnable
{
Object MUTEX = new Object();
private OnProgressListener mOnProgressListener = null;
public DoStuff()
{
new Thread(this).start();
}
public void setOnProgressListener( OnProgressListener onProgressListener )
{
synchronized (MUTEX)
{
mOnProgressListener = onProgressListener;
}
}
private void reportStatus( int statusId )
{
synchronized (MUTEX)
{
if (null != mOnStatusListener)
{
mOnStatusListener.setStatusMessage(new OnStatusEvent(this, statusId));
}
}
}
// this is the run of a thread
public void run()
{
int status = 0;
do
{
// do some work and report the current work status
status = doWork();
reportStatus( status );
} while(true);
}
}
You should use wait/notify. here is sample;
public class DoStuff {
Object MUTEX = new Object();
String data = null;
public void setData(String data) {
synchronized (MUTEX) {
this.data = data;
System.out.println(Thread.currentThread());
MUTEX.notifyAll();
}
}
public void run() {
do {
synchronized (MUTEX) {
if (null == data) {
return;
} else {
System.out.println(data);
}
try {
MUTEX.wait();
} catch (InterruptedException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
}
} while (true);
}
}
The trouble with this code is that your while() loop is constantly trying to grab the monitor for MUTEX immediately after releasing it or even yield()-ing to help the scheduler put another thread in. So there's a very good chance that anyone else trying to obtain that monitor will be starved, because your while() loop will consume most of your CPU time and even when other threads could run, they might not get the monitor they're waiting for.
Ideally a wait()/notify() pair should be used or failing that, you should at least call a Thread.yield() in your while loop, outside the synchronized block. (But I this second "solution" really isn't a very good one, you should consider using the first one instead.)
UPDATE: I read the code again and I think I believe to see what you wanted to achieve: printing the value of data every time you set a new value. If that's true, you should definitely go for the wait/notify solution, although if you want to absolutely guarantee that every single value is printed, you need to do even more work, possibly using a queue.
I'm a little confused about your code, can you provide the full listing?
First, where does DoStuff start a thread? Why are you quitting if your data is still null? (you might actually be out of the thread before setData even executes).
But the main thing here is that you're doing essentially a busy-waiting loop, in which you synchronize on the mutex. This is pretty wasteful and will generally block cores of your CPU.
Depending on what you are trying to do, you might want to use a wait-notify scheme, in which the thread goes to sleep until something happens.
Thanks all for your help. I was able to determine why the indefinite lock. Something important and obvious is that once I run the reportStatus() function call it will hold the lock MUTEX until it is completely done executing the callback. My fault was that at the registered callback I was calling setOnProgressListener(null) by mistake. Yes, I admit didn't post enough code, and most likely all of you would have catched the bug... So calling setOnProgressListener(null) would wait until the MUTEX object has been released, and the reportStatus() was held waiting to call setOnProgressListener(null), therefore I was in a deadlock!
Again the main point I learned is to remember that triggering a callback message will hold until the registered callback function is done processing it's call.
Thanks all!