How to pause running thread and restart same thread when needed? - java

i want to pause thread which is writing messages in file by iterate message list. When message list is empty i want thread to stop and thread is resumed when message in a list.
I know stop,suspend (),resume methods is deprecated but if thread is continuously in background it consumes cpu. I did lots of googling but can't find proper answer. please any one help me out
Here is my code:
private Thread mFileWriterThread = new Thread() {
#Override
public synchronized void run() {
while (mIsRunning) {
synchronized (mMessageList) {
Iterator it = mMessageList.iterator();
while ((it.hasNext())) {
String message = (String) it.next();
writeToFile(fileOutputStream, message);
mMessageList.remove(message);
}
}
}
}
};

That's what a BlockingQueue exists for. It has a take() method that forces a thread to block until an Object is avalaible. Your problem can be solved with a simple producer-consumer design.
I'm pasting here a minimal snippet taken from the Oracle examples:
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) { ... }
}
Of course Consumer an Producer have to share the queue somehow (just passing it to the constructor as shown in the example will work fine).

You want to use wait() to make the thread block*. And then call notify() to wake up the thread again. Google for "java wait notify" will give you a tutorial.
*Block here mean wait without using any resources, until an other thread wake it up.

Related

Java interrupting thread [duplicate]

I need a solution to properly stop the thread in Java.
I have IndexProcessorclass which implements the Runnable interface:
public class IndexProcessor implements Runnable {
private static final Logger LOGGER = LoggerFactory.getLogger(IndexProcessor.class);
#Override
public void run() {
boolean run = true;
while (run) {
try {
LOGGER.debug("Sleeping...");
Thread.sleep((long) 15000);
LOGGER.debug("Processing");
} catch (InterruptedException e) {
LOGGER.error("Exception", e);
run = false;
}
}
}
}
And I have ServletContextListener class which starts and stops the thread:
public class SearchEngineContextListener implements ServletContextListener {
private static final Logger LOGGER = LoggerFactory.getLogger(SearchEngineContextListener.class);
private Thread thread = null;
#Override
public void contextInitialized(ServletContextEvent event) {
thread = new Thread(new IndexProcessor());
LOGGER.debug("Starting thread: " + thread);
thread.start();
LOGGER.debug("Background process successfully started.");
}
#Override
public void contextDestroyed(ServletContextEvent event) {
LOGGER.debug("Stopping thread: " + thread);
if (thread != null) {
thread.interrupt();
LOGGER.debug("Thread successfully stopped.");
}
}
}
But when I shutdown tomcat, I get the exception in my IndexProcessor class:
2012-06-09 17:04:50,671 [Thread-3] ERROR IndexProcessor Exception
java.lang.InterruptedException: sleep interrupted
at java.lang.Thread.sleep(Native Method)
at lt.ccl.searchengine.processor.IndexProcessor.run(IndexProcessor.java:22)
at java.lang.Thread.run(Unknown Source)
I am using JDK 1.6. So the question is:
How can I stop the thread and not throw any exceptions?
P.S. I do not want to use .stop(); method because it is deprecated.
Using Thread.interrupt() is a perfectly acceptable way of doing this. In fact, it's probably preferrable to a flag as suggested above. The reason being that if you're in an interruptable blocking call (like Thread.sleep or using java.nio Channel operations), you'll actually be able to break out of those right away.
If you use a flag, you have to wait for the blocking operation to finish and then you can check your flag. In some cases you have to do this anyway, such as using standard InputStream/OutputStream which are not interruptable.
In that case, when a thread is interrupted, it will not interrupt the IO, however, you can easily do this routinely in your code (and you should do this at strategic points where you can safely stop and cleanup)
if (Thread.currentThread().isInterrupted()) {
// cleanup and stop execution
// for example a break in a loop
}
Like I said, the main advantage to Thread.interrupt() is that you can immediately break out of interruptable calls, which you can't do with the flag approach.
In the IndexProcessor class you need a way of setting a flag which informs the thread that it will need to terminate, similar to the variable run that you have used just in the class scope.
When you wish to stop the thread, you set this flag and call join() on the thread and wait for it to finish.
Make sure that the flag is thread safe by using a volatile variable or by using getter and setter methods which are synchronised with the variable being used as the flag.
public class IndexProcessor implements Runnable {
private static final Logger LOGGER = LoggerFactory.getLogger(IndexProcessor.class);
private volatile boolean running = true;
public void terminate() {
running = false;
}
#Override
public void run() {
while (running) {
try {
LOGGER.debug("Sleeping...");
Thread.sleep((long) 15000);
LOGGER.debug("Processing");
} catch (InterruptedException e) {
LOGGER.error("Exception", e);
running = false;
}
}
}
}
Then in SearchEngineContextListener:
public class SearchEngineContextListener implements ServletContextListener {
private static final Logger LOGGER = LoggerFactory.getLogger(SearchEngineContextListener.class);
private Thread thread = null;
private IndexProcessor runnable = null;
#Override
public void contextInitialized(ServletContextEvent event) {
runnable = new IndexProcessor();
thread = new Thread(runnable);
LOGGER.debug("Starting thread: " + thread);
thread.start();
LOGGER.debug("Background process successfully started.");
}
#Override
public void contextDestroyed(ServletContextEvent event) {
LOGGER.debug("Stopping thread: " + thread);
if (thread != null) {
runnable.terminate();
thread.join();
LOGGER.debug("Thread successfully stopped.");
}
}
}
Simple answer:
You can stop a thread INTERNALLY in one of two common ways:
The run method hits a return subroutine.
Run method finishes, and returns implicitly.
You can also stop threads EXTERNALLY:
Call system.exit (this kills your entire process)
Call the thread object's interrupt() method *
See if the thread has an implemented method that sounds like it would work (like kill() or stop())
*: The expectation is that this is supposed to stop a thread. However, what the thread actually does when this happens is entirely up to what the developer wrote when they created the thread implementation.
A common pattern you see with run method implementations is a while(boolean){}, where the boolean is typically something named isRunning, it's a member variable of its thread class, it's volatile, and typically accessible by other threads by a setter method of sorts, e.g. kill() { isRunnable=false; }. These subroutines are nice because they allow the thread to release any resources it holds before terminating.
You should always end threads by checking a flag in the run() loop (if any).
Your thread should look like this:
public class IndexProcessor implements Runnable {
private static final Logger LOGGER = LoggerFactory.getLogger(IndexProcessor.class);
private volatile boolean execute;
#Override
public void run() {
this.execute = true;
while (this.execute) {
try {
LOGGER.debug("Sleeping...");
Thread.sleep((long) 15000);
LOGGER.debug("Processing");
} catch (InterruptedException e) {
LOGGER.error("Exception", e);
this.execute = false;
}
}
}
public void stopExecuting() {
this.execute = false;
}
}
Then you can end the thread by calling thread.stopExecuting(). That way the thread is ended clean, but this takes up to 15 seconds (due to your sleep).
You can still call thread.interrupt() if it's really urgent - but the prefered way should always be checking the flag.
To avoid waiting for 15 seconds, you can split up the sleep like this:
...
try {
LOGGER.debug("Sleeping...");
for (int i = 0; (i < 150) && this.execute; i++) {
Thread.sleep((long) 100);
}
LOGGER.debug("Processing");
} catch (InterruptedException e) {
...
Typically, a thread is terminated when it's interrupted. So, why not use the native boolean? Try isInterrupted():
Thread t = new Thread(new Runnable(){
#Override
public void run() {
while(!Thread.currentThread().isInterrupted()){
// do stuff
}
}});
t.start();
// Sleep a second, and then interrupt
try {
Thread.sleep(1000);
} catch (InterruptedException e) {}
t.interrupt();
ref- How can I kill a thread? without using stop();
For synchronizing threads I prefer using CountDownLatch which helps threads to wait until the process being performed complete. In this case, the worker class is set up with a CountDownLatch instance with a given count. A call to await method will block until the current count reaches zero due to invocations of the countDown method or the timeout set is reached. This approach allows interrupting a thread instantly without having to wait for the specified waiting time to elapse:
public class IndexProcessor implements Runnable {
private static final Logger LOGGER = LoggerFactory.getLogger(IndexProcessor.class);
private final CountDownLatch countdownlatch;
public IndexProcessor(CountDownLatch countdownlatch) {
this.countdownlatch = countdownlatch;
}
public void run() {
try {
while (!countdownlatch.await(15000, TimeUnit.MILLISECONDS)) {
LOGGER.debug("Processing...");
}
} catch (InterruptedException e) {
LOGGER.error("Exception", e);
run = false;
}
}
}
When you want to finish execution of the other thread, execute countDown on the CountDownLatch and join the thread to the main thread:
public class SearchEngineContextListener implements ServletContextListener {
private static final Logger LOGGER = LoggerFactory.getLogger(SearchEngineContextListener.class);
private Thread thread = null;
private IndexProcessor runnable = null;
private CountDownLatch countdownLatch = null;
#Override
public void contextInitialized(ServletContextEvent event) {
countdownLatch = new CountDownLatch(1);
Thread thread = new Thread(new IndexProcessor(countdownLatch));
LOGGER.debug("Starting thread: " + thread);
thread.start();
LOGGER.debug("Background process successfully started.");
}
#Override
public void contextDestroyed(ServletContextEvent event) {
LOGGER.debug("Stopping thread: " + thread);
if (countdownLatch != null)
{
countdownLatch.countDown();
}
if (thread != null) {
try {
thread.join();
} catch (InterruptedException e) {
LOGGER.error("Exception", e);
}
LOGGER.debug("Thread successfully stopped.");
}
}
}
Some supplementary info.
Both flag and interrupt are suggested in the Java doc.
https://docs.oracle.com/javase/8/docs/technotes/guides/concurrency/threadPrimitiveDeprecation.html
private volatile Thread blinker;
public void stop() {
blinker = null;
}
public void run() {
Thread thisThread = Thread.currentThread();
while (blinker == thisThread) {
try {
Thread.sleep(interval);
} catch (InterruptedException e){
}
repaint();
}
}
For a thread that waits for long periods (e.g., for input), use Thread.interrupt
public void stop() {
Thread moribund = waiter;
waiter = null;
moribund.interrupt();
}
I didn't get the interrupt to work in Android, so I used this method, works perfectly:
boolean shouldCheckUpdates = true;
private void startupCheckForUpdatesEveryFewSeconds() {
threadCheckChat = new Thread(new CheckUpdates());
threadCheckChat.start();
}
private class CheckUpdates implements Runnable{
public void run() {
while (shouldCheckUpdates){
System.out.println("Do your thing here");
}
}
}
public void stop(){
shouldCheckUpdates = false;
}
Brian Goetz in his book suggests to use Thread.currentThread().isInterrupted() flag and interrupt() method for cancellation.
Blocking library methods like sleep() and wait() try to detect when a thread has been interrupted and return early. They respond to interruption by clearing the interrupted status and throwing InterruptedException, indicating that the blocking operation completed early due to interruption.
The JVM makes no guarantees on how quickly a blocking method will detect interruption, but in practice this happens reasonably quickly.
class PrimeProducer extends Thread {
private final BlockingQueue<BigInteger> queue;
PrimeProducer(BlockingQueue<BigInteger> queue) {
this.queue = queue;
}
public void run() {
try {
BigInteger p = BigInteger.ONE;
while (!Thread.currentThread().isInterrupted()) {
queue.put(p = p.nextProbablePrime()); // blocking operation
}
} catch (InterruptedException consumed) {
// allow thread to exit
}
// any code here will still be executed
}
public void cancel() {
interrupt();
}
}
If you put any code after catch block, it will still be executed as we swallow InterruptedException to exit from run() gracefully.
Just a couple words on how interrupt() works.
If interrupt is called on non-blocked thread, interrupt() will not cause InterruptedException inside run() but will just change flag isInterrupted to true and thread will continue its work until it reaches Thread.currentThread().isInterrupted() check and exit from run().
If interrupt is called on blocked thread (sleep() or wait()was called, in our case it's put() that might block a thread) then isInterrupted will be set to false and InterruptedException will be thrown inside put().

Concurrency Issue - Blocking Queue

I am confused with concurrency - i am trying to stop the consumer thread from running if the producer is shutdown but am having issues if the consumer is blocked on take(). I have tried adding a posion pill, interruptung the current thread, using a boolean flag and still to no avail.
Please can someone help advise where I am going wrong. Thanks.
public class TestPoisonPill implements Runnable {
private BlockingQueue<String> queue = new ArrayBlockingQueue<String>(1);
private volatile boolean stopped = false;
public void addToQueue(String event) throws InterruptedException{
System.out.println("in add to queue");
if(event != null){
try {
queue.put(event);
} catch (InterruptedException e) {
stopped = true;
queue.put("Poison");
System.out.println("Unable to add the event to the queue, order routing processing is stopped");
throw e;
}
}
}
#Override
public void run() {
while(!stopped){
try {
if(queue.size() > 0){
String string = queue.take();
System.out.println("taken " + string + "from the queue");
}else{
continue;
}
}
catch (InterruptedException e) {
stopped = true;
}
}
}
public boolean isStopped(){
return stopped;
}
protected BlockingQueue<String> getQueue() {
return queue;
}
protected void setBoolean(boolean b){
this.stopped = b;
}
public static void main(String[] args) throws InterruptedException{
ExecutorService exec = Executors.newSingleThreadExecutor();
final TestPoisonPill t = new TestPoisonPill();
exec.execute(t);
ExecutorService exec2 = Executors.newSingleThreadExecutor();
Runnable addTask = new Runnable() {
public void run() {
while (true) {
try {
t.addToQueue("hi");
Thread.sleep(100);
} catch (InterruptedException ex) {
System.out.println("add task interrupted ");
t.setBoolean(true);
break;
}
}
}
};
exec2.execute(addTask);
Thread.sleep(1000);
exec2.shutdownNow();
}
}
am confused with concurrency - i am trying to stop the consumer thread from running if the producer is shutdown but am having issues if the consumer is blocked on take()
If you problem is that you program is not stopping, I think you are missing an exec.shutdownNow() on your first ExecutorService. This will interrupt your first thread, if you change your loop to be something like:
while (!stopped && !Thread.currentThread().isInterrupted()) {
Without the interrupt flag check any interrupt will be not been seen by the thread. An interrupt is just a flag that is set on the thread. Certain methods (like Thread.sleep(...) and BlockingQueue.take()) throw InterruptedException when a thread is interrupted but your consumer is spinning and never calling take().
Really, the spin loop in the consumer is an extremely bad pattern. It should just call queue.take() and then either use the interrupt or have your producer actually submit a poisoned pill. Something like:
while (!Thread.currentThread().isInterrupted()) {
String string;
try {
string = queue.take();
} catch (InterruptedException e) {
break;
}
// here is where you could check for a poison pill
// something like: if (string == STOP_PILL) break;
System.out.println("taken " + string + "from the queue");
}
You don't really need the stopped flag if you are using interrupt appropriately.
You mention having tried a "poisoned pill". For others, a poisoned pill is when you put a specific "special" object on the queue which the consumer uses to know when to shutdown. Something like the following should work:
private static final String STOP_PILL = "__STOP_PLEASE!!__";
...
// the consumer removes from the queue
String string = queue.take();
// it tests to see if it a pill, == is better than .equals here
if (string == STOP_PILL) {
// the consumer should stop
break;
}
...
// to stop the consumer, the producer puts the pill into the queue
queue.put(STOP_PILL);
Lastly, you are using 2 ExecutorService instances when you could easily use one. I guess the point here is to interrupt only one of them but FYI. You can use a single Executors.newCachedThreadPool() which will create the number of threads you need.
You never shutdown your exec executor, only exec2, so the thread running your TestPoisonPill never gets interrupted.

Notify() from runnable

I have myThread.wait() that is in synchronzed(myThread) block. And I have Myrunner that implements runnable. I would like to tell notify() from myRunner, but it is not monitor object. Is it possible to get handle of myThread from myRunnable to make notify? Is there any other solution? Extend myRunnable from Thread and run it is not good for some reasons related on my code specific.
public class ThreadMain {
public Thread reader;
private class SerialReader implements Runnable {
public void run() {
while (true) {
try {
Thread.sleep(3000);
synchronized(this) {
System.out.println("notifying");
notify();
System.out.println("notifying done");
}
} catch (Exception e) {
System.out.println(e);
}
}
}
}
ThreadMain() {
reader = new Thread(new SerialReader());
}
public static void main(String [] args) {
ThreadMain d= new ThreadMain();
d.reader.start();
synchronized(d.reader) {
try {
d.reader.wait();
System.out.println("got notify");
} catch (Exception e) {
System.out.println(e);
}
}
}
}
Both threads should synchronize using the same object. Also, you should really not use an existing object to syncronize, but create a object to be used explicitly for synchronization, like
Object lock = new Object();
Also see https://www.securecoding.cert.org/confluence/display/java/LCK01-J.+Do+not+synchronize+on+objects+that+may+be+reused
If the lock is to be used to interact with your thread, you can put it in the thread and provide a getter for anyone to use it.
To notify() a wait()ing thread you much have a reference to the object it is wait() on and you must be able to acquire a lock on it. I suggest you also change a state which notifying and you check that state change in a loop when wait()ing.
The only other option is to change the code of the waiting thread.

Creating multithreading java class to process data

I would like to realize class in Java, which will be wait for new data from different threads and when he got it, this class will process it and again go to wait new data. I want to realize this using only synchronized, wait, notifyAll commands. I tried some variants:
1) using one thread, which wait by command lockObject.wait(). But when all active threads finish their work, this thread will be waiting forever. Of course, I can make method stopProcess(), but it is not safety, because another programmer can forget to call it.
2) using one daemon-thread, it will not work, because when all active threads finish their work, my daemon-thread die, but he can have some data which he must to process
3)when new data is coming - create new thread, which will process data. while thread is alive(he process given data), he will receive new data. when it is no data coming and all old data was processed, thread finish to work. Minus of this variant is - when data is coming through some period (when thread have time to process old data and die), a new thread will be created. I think it's bad for performance or/and memory. Am I right?
Is it possible to solve my problem using only one or two(may be using daemon and active thread in combination) threads and not using stopProcess() method??
Here some code
My realize of blocking queue
public class BlockingQueue<T> {
private Queue<T> queue = new LinkedList<T>();
public void add(T el){
synchronized (queue){
queue.add(el);
}
}
public T getFirst(){
synchronized (queue){
return queue.poll();
}
}
public int getSize(){
synchronized (queue){
return queue.size();
}
}
}
Data class
public class Data {
//some data
public void process(){
//process this data
}
}
First variant of code
public class ProcessData {
private BlockingQueue<Data> queue = new BlockingQueue<Data>();
private boolean run = false;
private Thread processThread;
private Object lock = new Object();
public synchronized void addData(Data data) throws Exception {
if (run){
if (data != null){
queue.add(data);
wakeUpToProcess();
}
}else{
throw new Exception("");
}
}
public synchronized void start() {
if (!run){
run = true;
processThread = new Thread(new Runnable() {
public void run() {
while (run || queue.getSize()!=0){
while(queue.getSize() == 0 && run){
//if stopProcess was not called
//and no active threads
//it will not die
waitForNewData();
}
Data cur;
while(queue.getSize() > 0){
cur = queue.getFirst();
cur.process();
}
}
}
});
processThread.start();
}
}
public synchronized void stopProcess() {
if (run){
run = false;
wakeUpToProcess();
}
}
private void waitForNewData(){
try{
synchronized (lock){
lock.wait();
}
}catch (InterruptedException ex){
ex.printStackTrace();
}
}
private void wakeUpToProcess(){
synchronized (lock){
lock.notifyAll();
}
}
}
In second variant I make processThread as daemon. But when active threads die, processThread finish to work, but there are some data in queue, which i have to process.
Third variant
public class ProcessData {
private BlockingQueue<Data> queue = new BlockingQueue<Data>();
private boolean run = false;
private Thread processThread = null;
public synchronized void addData(Data data) throws Exception {
if (run){
if (data != null){
queue.add(data);
wakeExecutor();
}
}else{
throw new Exception("ProcessData is stopped!");
}
}
public synchronized void start() {
if (!run){
run = true;
}
}
public synchronized void stopProcess() {
if (run){
run = false;
}
}
public boolean isRunning(){
return this.run;
}
protected void wakeExecutor(){
if (processThread ==null || !processThread.isAlive()){
processThread = new Thread(new Runnable() {
#Override
public void run() {
Data cur;
while(queue.getSize() > 0){
cur = queue.getFirst();
cur.process();
}
}
});
processThread.start();
}
}
}
It is important, that data must to process in the order, in which it come from threads.
You are seriously reinventing the wheel here. All you want is available in the JDK in the java.util.concurrent package.
Implement a producer-consumer pattern via a BlockingQueue, with your producers calling offer() and your consumer thread calling take(), which blocks until something's available.
That's it. You don't need, and you shouldn't be writing, all those classes you have written. These concurrent classes do all the locking and synchronization for you, and do it correctly too (which is not to be underestimated)
If you're not allowed to use anything from java.util.concurrent then you'll have to implement your own task queue based on something like a LinkedList. I would encapsulate the blocking behaviour in the queue, e.g. (pseudocode)
synchronized Data nextTask() {
while(the linked list is empty) {
wait()
}
remove and return head of the queue
}
synchronized void addTask(Data d) {
add d to the queue
notifyAll()
}
Then you can just have a consumer thread that continuously does something like this
while(true) {
taskQueue.nextTask().process()
}
and the producer threads call taskQueue.addTask to add each task to the queue. If you need a graceful shutdown at the end then you'll either need some "sentinel value" to tell the consumer thread to finish, or find some way of calling Thread.interrupt() at the right time.

How to properly stop the Thread in Java?

I need a solution to properly stop the thread in Java.
I have IndexProcessorclass which implements the Runnable interface:
public class IndexProcessor implements Runnable {
private static final Logger LOGGER = LoggerFactory.getLogger(IndexProcessor.class);
#Override
public void run() {
boolean run = true;
while (run) {
try {
LOGGER.debug("Sleeping...");
Thread.sleep((long) 15000);
LOGGER.debug("Processing");
} catch (InterruptedException e) {
LOGGER.error("Exception", e);
run = false;
}
}
}
}
And I have ServletContextListener class which starts and stops the thread:
public class SearchEngineContextListener implements ServletContextListener {
private static final Logger LOGGER = LoggerFactory.getLogger(SearchEngineContextListener.class);
private Thread thread = null;
#Override
public void contextInitialized(ServletContextEvent event) {
thread = new Thread(new IndexProcessor());
LOGGER.debug("Starting thread: " + thread);
thread.start();
LOGGER.debug("Background process successfully started.");
}
#Override
public void contextDestroyed(ServletContextEvent event) {
LOGGER.debug("Stopping thread: " + thread);
if (thread != null) {
thread.interrupt();
LOGGER.debug("Thread successfully stopped.");
}
}
}
But when I shutdown tomcat, I get the exception in my IndexProcessor class:
2012-06-09 17:04:50,671 [Thread-3] ERROR IndexProcessor Exception
java.lang.InterruptedException: sleep interrupted
at java.lang.Thread.sleep(Native Method)
at lt.ccl.searchengine.processor.IndexProcessor.run(IndexProcessor.java:22)
at java.lang.Thread.run(Unknown Source)
I am using JDK 1.6. So the question is:
How can I stop the thread and not throw any exceptions?
P.S. I do not want to use .stop(); method because it is deprecated.
Using Thread.interrupt() is a perfectly acceptable way of doing this. In fact, it's probably preferrable to a flag as suggested above. The reason being that if you're in an interruptable blocking call (like Thread.sleep or using java.nio Channel operations), you'll actually be able to break out of those right away.
If you use a flag, you have to wait for the blocking operation to finish and then you can check your flag. In some cases you have to do this anyway, such as using standard InputStream/OutputStream which are not interruptable.
In that case, when a thread is interrupted, it will not interrupt the IO, however, you can easily do this routinely in your code (and you should do this at strategic points where you can safely stop and cleanup)
if (Thread.currentThread().isInterrupted()) {
// cleanup and stop execution
// for example a break in a loop
}
Like I said, the main advantage to Thread.interrupt() is that you can immediately break out of interruptable calls, which you can't do with the flag approach.
In the IndexProcessor class you need a way of setting a flag which informs the thread that it will need to terminate, similar to the variable run that you have used just in the class scope.
When you wish to stop the thread, you set this flag and call join() on the thread and wait for it to finish.
Make sure that the flag is thread safe by using a volatile variable or by using getter and setter methods which are synchronised with the variable being used as the flag.
public class IndexProcessor implements Runnable {
private static final Logger LOGGER = LoggerFactory.getLogger(IndexProcessor.class);
private volatile boolean running = true;
public void terminate() {
running = false;
}
#Override
public void run() {
while (running) {
try {
LOGGER.debug("Sleeping...");
Thread.sleep((long) 15000);
LOGGER.debug("Processing");
} catch (InterruptedException e) {
LOGGER.error("Exception", e);
running = false;
}
}
}
}
Then in SearchEngineContextListener:
public class SearchEngineContextListener implements ServletContextListener {
private static final Logger LOGGER = LoggerFactory.getLogger(SearchEngineContextListener.class);
private Thread thread = null;
private IndexProcessor runnable = null;
#Override
public void contextInitialized(ServletContextEvent event) {
runnable = new IndexProcessor();
thread = new Thread(runnable);
LOGGER.debug("Starting thread: " + thread);
thread.start();
LOGGER.debug("Background process successfully started.");
}
#Override
public void contextDestroyed(ServletContextEvent event) {
LOGGER.debug("Stopping thread: " + thread);
if (thread != null) {
runnable.terminate();
thread.join();
LOGGER.debug("Thread successfully stopped.");
}
}
}
Simple answer:
You can stop a thread INTERNALLY in one of two common ways:
The run method hits a return subroutine.
Run method finishes, and returns implicitly.
You can also stop threads EXTERNALLY:
Call system.exit (this kills your entire process)
Call the thread object's interrupt() method *
See if the thread has an implemented method that sounds like it would work (like kill() or stop())
*: The expectation is that this is supposed to stop a thread. However, what the thread actually does when this happens is entirely up to what the developer wrote when they created the thread implementation.
A common pattern you see with run method implementations is a while(boolean){}, where the boolean is typically something named isRunning, it's a member variable of its thread class, it's volatile, and typically accessible by other threads by a setter method of sorts, e.g. kill() { isRunnable=false; }. These subroutines are nice because they allow the thread to release any resources it holds before terminating.
You should always end threads by checking a flag in the run() loop (if any).
Your thread should look like this:
public class IndexProcessor implements Runnable {
private static final Logger LOGGER = LoggerFactory.getLogger(IndexProcessor.class);
private volatile boolean execute;
#Override
public void run() {
this.execute = true;
while (this.execute) {
try {
LOGGER.debug("Sleeping...");
Thread.sleep((long) 15000);
LOGGER.debug("Processing");
} catch (InterruptedException e) {
LOGGER.error("Exception", e);
this.execute = false;
}
}
}
public void stopExecuting() {
this.execute = false;
}
}
Then you can end the thread by calling thread.stopExecuting(). That way the thread is ended clean, but this takes up to 15 seconds (due to your sleep).
You can still call thread.interrupt() if it's really urgent - but the prefered way should always be checking the flag.
To avoid waiting for 15 seconds, you can split up the sleep like this:
...
try {
LOGGER.debug("Sleeping...");
for (int i = 0; (i < 150) && this.execute; i++) {
Thread.sleep((long) 100);
}
LOGGER.debug("Processing");
} catch (InterruptedException e) {
...
Typically, a thread is terminated when it's interrupted. So, why not use the native boolean? Try isInterrupted():
Thread t = new Thread(new Runnable(){
#Override
public void run() {
while(!Thread.currentThread().isInterrupted()){
// do stuff
}
}});
t.start();
// Sleep a second, and then interrupt
try {
Thread.sleep(1000);
} catch (InterruptedException e) {}
t.interrupt();
ref- How can I kill a thread? without using stop();
For synchronizing threads I prefer using CountDownLatch which helps threads to wait until the process being performed complete. In this case, the worker class is set up with a CountDownLatch instance with a given count. A call to await method will block until the current count reaches zero due to invocations of the countDown method or the timeout set is reached. This approach allows interrupting a thread instantly without having to wait for the specified waiting time to elapse:
public class IndexProcessor implements Runnable {
private static final Logger LOGGER = LoggerFactory.getLogger(IndexProcessor.class);
private final CountDownLatch countdownlatch;
public IndexProcessor(CountDownLatch countdownlatch) {
this.countdownlatch = countdownlatch;
}
public void run() {
try {
while (!countdownlatch.await(15000, TimeUnit.MILLISECONDS)) {
LOGGER.debug("Processing...");
}
} catch (InterruptedException e) {
LOGGER.error("Exception", e);
run = false;
}
}
}
When you want to finish execution of the other thread, execute countDown on the CountDownLatch and join the thread to the main thread:
public class SearchEngineContextListener implements ServletContextListener {
private static final Logger LOGGER = LoggerFactory.getLogger(SearchEngineContextListener.class);
private Thread thread = null;
private IndexProcessor runnable = null;
private CountDownLatch countdownLatch = null;
#Override
public void contextInitialized(ServletContextEvent event) {
countdownLatch = new CountDownLatch(1);
Thread thread = new Thread(new IndexProcessor(countdownLatch));
LOGGER.debug("Starting thread: " + thread);
thread.start();
LOGGER.debug("Background process successfully started.");
}
#Override
public void contextDestroyed(ServletContextEvent event) {
LOGGER.debug("Stopping thread: " + thread);
if (countdownLatch != null)
{
countdownLatch.countDown();
}
if (thread != null) {
try {
thread.join();
} catch (InterruptedException e) {
LOGGER.error("Exception", e);
}
LOGGER.debug("Thread successfully stopped.");
}
}
}
Some supplementary info.
Both flag and interrupt are suggested in the Java doc.
https://docs.oracle.com/javase/8/docs/technotes/guides/concurrency/threadPrimitiveDeprecation.html
private volatile Thread blinker;
public void stop() {
blinker = null;
}
public void run() {
Thread thisThread = Thread.currentThread();
while (blinker == thisThread) {
try {
Thread.sleep(interval);
} catch (InterruptedException e){
}
repaint();
}
}
For a thread that waits for long periods (e.g., for input), use Thread.interrupt
public void stop() {
Thread moribund = waiter;
waiter = null;
moribund.interrupt();
}
I didn't get the interrupt to work in Android, so I used this method, works perfectly:
boolean shouldCheckUpdates = true;
private void startupCheckForUpdatesEveryFewSeconds() {
threadCheckChat = new Thread(new CheckUpdates());
threadCheckChat.start();
}
private class CheckUpdates implements Runnable{
public void run() {
while (shouldCheckUpdates){
System.out.println("Do your thing here");
}
}
}
public void stop(){
shouldCheckUpdates = false;
}
Brian Goetz in his book suggests to use Thread.currentThread().isInterrupted() flag and interrupt() method for cancellation.
Blocking library methods like sleep() and wait() try to detect when a thread has been interrupted and return early. They respond to interruption by clearing the interrupted status and throwing InterruptedException, indicating that the blocking operation completed early due to interruption.
The JVM makes no guarantees on how quickly a blocking method will detect interruption, but in practice this happens reasonably quickly.
class PrimeProducer extends Thread {
private final BlockingQueue<BigInteger> queue;
PrimeProducer(BlockingQueue<BigInteger> queue) {
this.queue = queue;
}
public void run() {
try {
BigInteger p = BigInteger.ONE;
while (!Thread.currentThread().isInterrupted()) {
queue.put(p = p.nextProbablePrime()); // blocking operation
}
} catch (InterruptedException consumed) {
// allow thread to exit
}
// any code here will still be executed
}
public void cancel() {
interrupt();
}
}
If you put any code after catch block, it will still be executed as we swallow InterruptedException to exit from run() gracefully.
Just a couple words on how interrupt() works.
If interrupt is called on non-blocked thread, interrupt() will not cause InterruptedException inside run() but will just change flag isInterrupted to true and thread will continue its work until it reaches Thread.currentThread().isInterrupted() check and exit from run().
If interrupt is called on blocked thread (sleep() or wait()was called, in our case it's put() that might block a thread) then isInterrupted will be set to false and InterruptedException will be thrown inside put().

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