Is it sufficient to wrap contents of run method inside a while loop that checks if THread is interrupted for making any Thread interruptable
public void run () {
while (!Thread.interrupted()) {
do something.
}
}
How does a thread support its own interruption? This depends on what
it's currently doing. If the thread is frequently invoking methods
that throw InterruptedException, it simply returns from the run method
after it catches that exception.
Reference documentation
For a example if your thread goes for sleep bettween work then it is better to catch InterruptedException.
public void run(){
while(true)
try {
Thread.sleep(4000);
} catch (InterruptedException e) {
// We've been interrupted: no more messages.
return;
}
}
If your thread runs for long time you can check periodically invoke Thread.interrupted, which returns true if an interrupt has been received.
interrupted() is static method to check the current thread is interrupted or not. isInterrupted() is an instance to check the Thread objects called on.
For Present Thread use
if(!(Thread.interrupted())){//do something}
When Thread object called use if(myThread.isInterrupted()){//do something
}
Related
I wrote a thread, it is taking too much time to execute and it seems it is not completely done. I want to stop the thread gracefully. Any help ?
The good way to do it is to have the run() of the Thread guarded by a boolean variable and set it to true from the outside when you want to stop it, something like:
class MyThread extends Thread
{
volatile boolean finished = false;
public void stopMe()
{
finished = true;
}
public void run()
{
while (!finished)
{
//do dirty work
}
}
}
Once upon a time a stop() method existed but as the documentation states
This method is inherently unsafe. Stopping a thread with Thread.stop causes it to unlock all of the monitors that it has locked (as a natural consequence of the unchecked ThreadDeath exception propagating up the stack). If any of the objects previously protected by these monitors were in an inconsistent state, the damaged objects become visible to other threads, potentially resulting in arbitrary behavior.
That's why you should have a guard..
The bad part about using a flag to stop your thread is that if the thread is waiting or sleeping then you have to wait for it to finish waiting/sleeping. If you call the interrupt method on the thread then that will cause the wait or sleep call to be exited with an InterruptedException.
(A second bad part about the flag approach is that most nontrivial code is going to be utilizing libraries like java.util.concurrent, where the classes are specifically designed to use interruption to cancel. Trying to use the hand rolled flag in a task passed into an Executor is going to be awkward.)
Calling interrupt() also sets an interrupted property that you can use as a flag to check whether to quit (in the event that the thread is not waiting or sleeping).
You can write the thread's run method so that the InterruptedException is caught outside whatever looping logic the thread is doing, or you can catch the exception within the loop and close to the call throwing the exception, setting the interrupt flag inside the catch block for the InterruptedException so that the thread doesn't lose track of the fact that it was interrupted. The interrupted thread can still keep control and finish processing on its own terms.
Say I want to write a worker thread that does work in increments, where there's a sleep in the middle for some reason, and I don't want quitting the sleep to make processing quit without doing the remaining work for that increment, I only want it to quit if it is in-between increments:
class MyThread extends Thread
{
public void run()
{
while (!Thread.currentThread().isInterrupted())
{
doFirstPartOfIncrement();
try {
Thread.sleep(10000L);
} catch (InterruptedException e) {
// restore interrupt flag
Thread.currentThread().interrupt();
}
doSecondPartOfIncrement();
}
}
}
Here is an answer to a similar question, including example code.
You should not kill Thread from other one. It's considered as fairly bad habit. However, there are many ways. You can use return statement from thread's run method.
Or you can check if thread has already been interrupted and then it will cancel it's work. F.e. :
while (!isInterrupted()) {
// doStuff
}
Make a volatile boolean stop somewhere. Then in the code that runs in the thread, regularly do
if (stop) // end gracefully by breaking out of loop or whatever
To stop the thread, set stop to true.
I think you must do it manually this way. After all, only the code running in the thread has any idea what is and isn't graceful.
You need to send a stop-message to the Thread and the Thread itself needs to take action if the message has been received. This is pretty easy, if the long-running action is inside loop:
public class StoppableThread extends Thread {
private volatile boolean stop = false;
public void stopGracefully() {
stop = true;
}
public void run() {
boolean finished = false;
while (!stop && !finished) {
// long running action - finished will be true once work is done
}
}
}
For a thread to stop itself, no one seems to have mentioned (mis)using exception:
abstract class SelfStoppingThread extends Thread {
#Override
public final void run() {
try {
doRun();
} catch (final Stop stop) {
//optional logging
}
}
abstract void doRun();
protected final void stopSelf() {
throw new Stop();
}
private static final class Stop extends RuntimeException {};
}
A subclass just need to override doRun() normally as you would with a Thread, and call stopSelf() whenever it feels like it wants to stop. IMO it feels cleaner than using a flag in a while loop.
If you execute the following code, you will see the thread is interrupted, however, Thread.interrupted() will return false
public class Test {
public static void main(String args[]) {
Thread t = new Thread() {
public void run() {
try {
synchronized (this) {
wait();
}
} catch (Exception e) {
e.printStackTrace();
System.out.println(Thread.interrupted());
}
}
};
t.start();
t.interrupt();
for (;;) {
}
}
}
Please help me understand why it is false, Instead it should be true
The JavaDocs are a wonderful thing...
Throws:
InterruptedException - if any thread
interrupted the current thread before or while the current thread was
waiting. The interrupted status of the current thread is cleared when
this exception is thrown.
When you call t.interrupt(), the wait() method throws an InterruptedException, yes, but only because internally it is periodically checking for interruptions by means of calling Thread.interrupted().
If you check the API for this last method, you can read:
public static boolean interrupted()
Tests whether the current thread has been interrupted. The interrupted status of the thread is cleared by this method. In other words, if this method were to be called twice in succession, the second call would return false (unless the current thread were interrupted again, after the first call had cleared its interrupted status and before the second call had examined it).
Which is exactly what is happening to you.
This is the reason why some articles like this one from IBM DeveloperWorks recommend to reset the interrupted flag every time we catch InterruptedException but don't plan on doing anything about the interruption itself:
When a blocking method detects interruption and throws InterruptedException, it clears the interrupted status. If you catch InterruptedException but cannot rethrow it, you should preserve evidence that the interruption occurred so that code higher up on the call stack can learn of the interruption and respond to it if it wants to. This task is accomplished by calling interrupt() to "reinterrupt" the current thread.
Hi i am studying and playing with thread in java. i read in a book that Thread object and Running Thread is not same thing.even the thread complete it's run method running thread goes into dead state i even check that with isAlive() method. i want to know that if both are different then the following code is not working as per i understand.
public class Main {
public static void main(String[] args) throws ParseException {
Student s = new Student();
Thread t = new Thread(s);
t.start();
t.run();
t.run();
t.run();
t.run();
t.run();
}
}
class Student implements Runnable {
public void run() {
try {
Thread.sleep(1000);
System.out.println(Thread.currentThread().getName());
} catch (InterruptedException e) {
// TODO Auto-generated catch block
e.printStackTrace();
}
}
}
it only shows this output.
main
Thread-0
main
or this
Thread-0
main
from this result i understand that after thread complete it's run method. Running thread goes into dead State and calling on Thread obj method no working.but i couldn't understand the reason behind because Thread object is skill reference and what about the other methods of Thread class.
like
yield()?
start()?
here is another scenario for clear understanding what i said
public class Main {
public static void main(String[] args) throws ParseException {
Student s = new Student();
Thread t = new Thread(s);
t.start();
if (!t.isAlive()) {
t.start();
}
}
}
class Student implements Runnable {
public void run() {
try {
Thread.sleep(1000);
System.out.println(Thread.currentThread().getName());
} catch (InterruptedException e) {
// TODO Auto-generated catch block
e.printStackTrace();
}
}
}
documentation said if we call start method on Thread t object then it will throw java.lang.IllegalThreadStateException. but the above code working fine.
i am very confused about which methods of Thread class rely on Running thread and which for thread object. i hope you understand the problem.
thanks in advance?
Right after starting the thread by t.start(), this condition:
if (!t.isAlive())
is veeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeery unlikely to be met--because started thread doesn't block. That is why it just skips (because t.isAlive() == true) and goes further without an exception.
You can do it on both ways. It's pretty much the same. You should start the thread in your first code file just with a simple
t.start();
I'd remove all the t.run() from your above code, because you are creating a new Thread object with your implemented inner class.
In your first attempt you never restarted the thread:
t.start();
t.run();// does not restarts the thread, it simply makes synchronous call the run(), hence you don't get the exception
t.start();// add this line, to restart the thread and get the exception
On second attempt, the condition fails as the thread is likely to start and is alive, as per your condition thread must not be alive and it fails to restart the thread.
t.start();
t.join();// add this line, it allows thread to complete first
if (!t.isAlive()) {
t.start();
}
P.S.
In order to start a thread make call to start() which will cause async call to run(). If you make call to run(), it won't start as thread, it will be synchronous call like normal method invocation.
In the first example you provided, the cause for the program not displaying a count of thread names equal to your t.start() + t.run() calls is the fact that after a thread is dead, you cannot call on it start() or run() again. It's dead. The reason there are 3 outputs is likely because until t.start() enters in dead state, the other 2 calls manage to perform.
In the second example, you should be aware that when a start() is called, the thread state is put on alive. Anyway, in a concurrent environment you cannot rely on operations call sequence if synchronized isn't involved, but, from the result you get, it seems that t.start() is called before the t.isAlive() check.
Hope to help.
i read in a book that Thread object and Running Thread is not same thing.
Right, a "thread" is an execution of your code. A Thread is a Java object that you can use to create and mananage the life-cycle of a "thread". The "thread" is not created until you call the Thread object's .start() method, and the Thread object can continue to exist even after the "thread" has finished its work and disappeared.
I do not understand why the thread does not throw an InterruptedException when interrupted itself.
I'm trying with following snippet:
public class InterruptTest {
public static void main(String[] args) {
MyThread t = new MyThread();
t.start();
try {
t.join();
} catch (InterruptedException ex) {
ex.printStackTrace();
}
}
private static class MyThread extends Thread {
#Override
public void run() {
Thread.currentThread().interrupt();
}
} }
In the API docs it says on the interrupt() method:
If this thread is blocked in an invocation of the wait(), wait(long), or wait(long, int) methods of the Object class, or of the Thread.join(), Thread.join(long), Thread.join(long, int), Thread.sleep(long), or Thread.sleep(long, int), methods of this class, then its interrupt status will be cleared and it will receive an InterruptedException.
I know this is an old question, but I think the answers above are actually not quite correct. (except #Skylion's, which doesn't really address the question...) :)
Thread.interrupt() does not throw any exceptions by itself. It does two things: First it simply sets an internal interrupted-flag and then it checks if the thread that it was called on is currently blocking on an activity like wait(), sleep(), or join(). If it finds one, then it wakes up that method and causes that method to throw the exception inside the thread it was called on (not from).
In the case where you call interrupt() from the thread itself, that thread obviously can't itself be currently blocking on one of those calls as it is currently executing your interrupt() call. So, only the internal interrupted-flag is set and no exception is thrown at all.
The next time you call one of the blocking methods (like sleep() in #OldCurmudgeon's example) from that thread, that method will notice the interrupted-flag and throw the InterruptedException.
If you don't ever call any of those methods, your thread will simply continue running until it terminates some other way and will never throw an InterruptedException. This is true even if you call interrupt() from a different thread.
So, to notice that your thread has been interrupted, you either need to frequently use one of the blocking methods that throws an InterruptedException and then quit when you receive one of those exceptions, or you need to frequently call Thread.interrupted() to check the internal interrupted-flag yourself and quit if it ever returns true. But you are also free to simply ignore the exception and the result from Thread.interrupted() completely and keep the thread running. So, interrupt() might be a little bit ambiguously named. It doesn't necessarily "interrupt" (as in "terminate") the Thread at all, it simply sends a signal to the thread that the thread can handle or ignore as it pleases. Much like a hardware interrupt signal on a CPU (which is probably where the name comes from).
To have the exception be thrown by the join() method in your main thread, you need to call interrupt() on that thread, rather than on MyThread, like so:
public static void main(String[] args) {
MyThread t = new MyThread();
t.setDaemon(true); // Quit when main thread is done
t.start();
try {
t.join();
} catch (InterruptedException ex) {
System.out.println("Now it works:");
ex.printStackTrace();
}
}
private static class MyThread extends Thread {
private final Thread parentThread;
public MyThread() {
parentThread = Thread.currentThread();
}
#Override
public void run() {
parentThread.interrupt(); // Call on main thread!!!
while (true); // Keep thread running (see comments)
}
}
See #markus-a's answer for what should have been the accepted answer here.
(Mine should be deleted, but I can't do that while it's accepted).
Exceptions are always thrown on their own thread. You have two different threads: your main thread and the one you created. There's no way the exception thrown in MyThread can be caught in the main one.
Why interrupt the thread at all? Just use
return;
You're just being too quick - try this:
private static class MyThread extends Thread {
#Override
public void run() {
try {
Thread.currentThread().interrupt();
Thread.sleep(5000);
} catch (InterruptedException ex) {
Logger.getLogger(Test.class.getName()).log(Level.SEVERE, "Oops", ex);
}
}
}
I get:
Oct 04, 2013 12:43:46 AM test.Test$MyThread run
SEVERE: Oops
java.lang.InterruptedException: sleep interrupted
at java.lang.Thread.sleep(Native Method)
at test.Test$MyThread.run(Test.java:36)
note that you cannot propagate the exception out of the run method because run does not throw any exceptions.
Thread currentThread=Thread.currentThread();
public void run()
{
while(!shutdown)
{
try
{
System.out.println(currentThread.isAlive());
Thread.interrupted();
System.out.println(currentThread.isAlive());
if(currentThread.isAlive()==false)
{
shutdown=true;
}
}
catch(Exception e)
{
currentThread.interrupt();
}
}
}
});
thread.start();
The alternative to calling stop is to use interrupt to signal to the thread that you want it to finish what it's doing. (This assumes the thread you want to stop is well-behaved, if it ignores InterruptedExceptions by eating them immediately after they are thrown and doesn't check the interrupted status then you are back to using stop().)
Here's some code I wrote as an answer to a threading question here, it's an example of how thread interruption works:
public class HelloWorld {
public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
Thread thread = new Thread(new Runnable() {
public void run() {
try {
while (!Thread.currentThread().isInterrupted()) {
Thread.sleep(5000);
System.out.println("Hello World!");
}
} catch (InterruptedException e) {
Thread.currentThread().interrupt();
}
}
});
thread.start();
System.out.println("press enter to quit");
System.in.read();
thread.interrupt();
}
}
Some things to be aware of:
Interrupting causes sleep() and wait() to immediately throw, otherwise you are stuck waiting for the sleep time to pass.
Note that there is no need for a separate boolean flag.
The thread being stopped cooperates by checking the interrupted status and catching InterruptedExceptions outside the while loop (using it to exit the loop). Interruption is one place where it's ok to use an exception for flow control, that is the whole point of it.
Setting interrupt on the current thread in the catch block is technically best-practice but is overkill for this example, because there is nothing else that needs the interrupt flag set.
Some observations about the posted code:
The posted example is incomplete, but putting a reference to the current thread in an instance variable seems like a bad idea. It will get initialized to whatever thread is creating the object, not to the thread executing the run method. If the same Runnable instance is executed on more than one thread then the instance variable won't reflect the right thread most of the time.
The check for whether the thread is alive is necessarily always going to result in true (unless there's an error where the currentThread instance variable is referencing the wrong thread), Thread#isAlive is false only after the thread has finished executing, it doesn't return false just because it's been interrupted.
Calling Thread#interrupted will result in clearing the interrupt flag, and makes no sense here, especially since the return value is discarded. The point of calling Thread#interrupted is to test the state of the interrupted flag and then clear it, it's a convenience method used by things that throw InterruptedException.
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();
Good way to do it would be to use a boolean flag to signal the thread.
class MyRunnable implements Runnable {
public volatile boolean stopThread = false;
public void run() {
while(!stopThread) {
// Thread code here
}
}
}
Create a MyRunnable instance called myrunnable, wrap it in a new Thread instance and start the instance. When you want to flag the thread to stop, set myrunnable.stopThread = true. This way, it doesn't get stopped in the middle of something, only where we expect it to get stopped.