Can I do something like this in Java:
protected Runnable getRunnable(final int seconds) {
Runnable runnable = new Runnable() {
public void run() {
sendData();
try {
Thread.sleep(seconds * 1000);
}
catch (InterruptedException e) {
Thread.currentThread().interrupt();
}
}
};
return runnable;
}
And then:
protected void startTimer(int seconds) throws InterruptedException,NullPointerException {
Thread thread = new Thread(getRunnable(seconds));
thread.start();
}
Is the aforementioned process safe??
In the comments you say
All I'm trying to do is to execute sendData() method every a specific amount of seconds(i.e. every 15 seconds)
Then use a built-in Timer which will organise that for you, for example:
ScheduledExecutorService scheduler = Executors.newScheduledThreadPool(1);
Runnable r = new Runnable() {
#Override
public void run() {
sendData();
}
};
ScheduledFuture<?> future = scheduler.scheduleAtFixedRate(r, 0, 15, TimeUnit.SECONDS);
//when you want to cancel the scheduled task
future.cancel(true);
//and before you leave your program, don't forget to call:
scheduler.shutdown();
Yes it is safe (assuming sendData itself is safe), but I'm not sure exactly what you expect it to do. Your code as written will create a new thread that will immediately call sendData(), then after sendData returns the thread will sleep for a number of seconds and then terminate without doing anything else (so the sleep is pointless, other than preventing the JVM from exiting or the Runnable or its containing object from being garbage collected until the sleep is finished). If you want it to wait before calling sendData then you need to swap things around a bit.
Have you tried it ? The answer is that it does work. Runnable is an interface implemented by an Object (an anonymous class in your example above), and you can pass it around / reference it just like any other object.
Note that because the above is an inner class, you'll have an implicit reference to the outer (surrounding) class.
Related
Here's essentially my problem:
while (true) {
if (previous 'doWorkAsync' method is not still in flight) {
doWorkAsync() // this returns immediately
}
wait set amount of time
}
A couple solutions come to mind for me:
Block until doWorkAsync() completes. This is not desirable to me for a few reasons.
It (potentially) results in waiting longer than I really needed to in the 'wait some set amount of time' line (e.g. if doWorkAsync takes 5 seconds, and the set amount of waiting time is 10 seconds, this will result in 15 seconds of waiting between calls, which isn't what I wanted). Of course, I could account for this by waiting less time, but somehow it just feels clunky.
It also ties up this thread unnecessarily. Instead of waiting for this task to come back, this thread could handle other work, like making config updates so the next call to doWorkAsync() has fresh data.
Use a gating mechanism. The easiest implementation that comes to mind is a boolean, set before calls to doWorkAsync(), and unset when doWorkAsync() completes. This is essentially what I'm doing now, but I'm not sure if it's an anti-pattern??
Is #2 the right way to go, or are there better ways to solve this problem?
EDIT: If it helps, doWorkAsync() returns a ListenableFuture (of guava).
The original question may not have been 100% clear. Here's the crux. If the async request finishes before the given timeout, this code will always work. However, if the async task takes SET_AMOUNT_OF_TIME + epsilon to complete, then this code will sleep twice as long as necessary, which is what I'm trying to avoid.
The simplest way to do this is using the wait and notifyAll methods already in Java. All you need to do is use an AtomicBoolean as a flag and block on it until the another Thread tells you something has changed.
The difference between that and your approach is that a blocked thread doesn't do anything whereas a polling thread uses CPU time.
Here is a simple example using two Threads - the Runnable "First" is submitted and it waits on done until the Runnable "Second" notifies that it has changed the flag.
public class App {
private static final AtomicBoolean done = new AtomicBoolean(false);
private static final class First implements Runnable {
#Override
public void run() {
while (!done.get()) {
System.out.println("Waiting.");
synchronized (done) {
try {
done.wait();
} catch (InterruptedException ex) {
return;
}
}
}
System.out.println("Done!");
}
}
private static final class Second implements Runnable {
#Override
public void run() {
try {
Thread.sleep(1000);
} catch (InterruptedException ex) {
return;
}
done.set(true);
synchronized (done) {
done.notifyAll();
}
}
}
public static void main(String[] args) throws InterruptedException {
final ExecutorService executorService = Executors.newFixedThreadPool(2);
executorService.submit(new First());
Thread.sleep(1000);
executorService.submit(new Second());
executorService.shutdown();
}
}
The sleep calls are just to show that a task of arbitrary length can take place, obviously they are not required.
The thing to note is that First prints "waiting" every time it enters the loop and, if you run the code, it only prints it once. The second thing to note is that First reacts to the changing of the flag immediately as it is told to awake and recheck when the flag is changed.
I have used return in the InterruptedException blocks, you may want to used Thread.currentThread().interrupt() instead so that the process doesn't die if it's spuriously interrupted.
A more advanced approach is to use Lock and Condition
public class App {
private static final Lock lock = new ReentrantLock();
private static final Condition condition = lock.newCondition();
private static final class First implements Runnable {
#Override
public void run() {
lock.lock();
System.out.println("Waiting");
try {
condition.await();
} catch (InterruptedException ex) {
return;
} finally {
lock.unlock();
}
System.out.println("Done!");
}
}
private static final class Second implements Runnable {
#Override
public void run() {
lock.lock();
try {
Thread.sleep(1000);
condition.signalAll();
} catch (InterruptedException ex) {
return;
} finally {
lock.unlock();
}
}
}
public static void main(String[] args) throws InterruptedException {
final ExecutorService executorService = Executors.newFixedThreadPool(2);
executorService.submit(new First());
Thread.sleep(1000);
executorService.submit(new Second());
executorService.shutdown();
}
}
In this situation First acquires a lock on the Lock object the immediately calls await on the Condition. The releases the lock and blocks on the Condition.
Second then acquires a lock on the Lock and calls signalAll on the Condition which awakes First.
First then reacquires the lock and continues execution, printing "Done!".
EDIT
The OP would like to call the method doWorkAsync with a specified period, if the method takes less time than the period then the process has to wait. If the method takes longer then the method should be called again immediately after.
The task needs to be stopped after a certain time.
At no point should the method be running more than once simultaneously.
The easiest approach would be to call the method from a ScheduledExecutorService, the Runnable would wrap the method and call get on the Future - blocking the scheduled executor until it is done.
This guarantees that the method is called with at least WAIT_TIME_BETWEEN_CALLS_SECS delay.
Then schedule another task that kills the first one after a set time.
final ScheduledExecutorService scheduledExecutorService = Executors.newSingleThreadScheduledExecutor();
final Future<?> taskHandle = scheduledExecutorService.scheduleAtFixedRate(new Runnable() {
#Override
public void run() {
final ListenableFuture<Void> lf = doWorkAsync();
try {
doWorkAsync().get();
} catch (InterruptedException ex) {
Thread.currentThread().interrupt();
} catch (ExecutionException ex) {
throw new RuntimeException(ex);
}
}
}, 0, WAIT_TIME_BETWEEN_CALLS_SECS, TimeUnit.SECONDS);
scheduledExecutorService.schedule(new Runnable() {
#Override
public void run() {
taskHandle.cancel(false);
}
}, TOTAL_TIME_SECS, TimeUnit.SECONDS);
The best solution would be call the raw Runnable on a ScheduledExecutorService rather than calling it on another executor and blocking on the ListenableFuture.
Think what you are looking for is The Reactor Pattern.
Is there a reason you don't want these things running at the same time? If what you want to do is chain them, you could use Futures. Akka has Composable Futures and mappable ones.
Is it possible to create a separate background thread which would separately do some stuff?
I've tried the following program but it doesn't work as I expect.
public class Test {
private static class UpdaterThread extends Thread {
private final int TIMEOUT = 3000;
public void run() {
while (true) {
try {
Thread.sleep(TIMEOUT);
System.out.println("3 seconds passed");
} catch (InterruptedException ex) {
}
}
}
}
/**
* #param args
* the command line arguments
*/
public static void main(String[] args) {
try {
Thread u = new UpdaterThread();
u.start();
while (true) {
System.out.println("--");
}
} catch (Exception ex) {
ex.printStackTrace();
}
}
}
I expected that every 3 seconds "3 seconds passed" will be printed in the flow of multiple "--" strings.
In fact "3 seconds passed" is never printed. Why? And how can I create a background thread which would do something independantly from the main thread?
Use java.util.TimerTask and java.util.Timer:
Timer t = new Timer();
t.scheduleAtFixedRate(
new TimerTask()
{
public void run()
{
System.out.println("3 seconds passed");
}
},
0, // run first occurrence immediately
3000); // run every three seconds
It does print "3 seconds passed". Remove the System.out.println("--") and you will see them more easily ;-)
Now you could also use a ScheduledExecutorService, and use a Runnable instead of a Thread:
public class Test {
private static class Updater implements Runnable {
#Override
public void run() {
System.out.println("3 seconds passed");
}
}
public static void main(String[] args) throws InterruptedException {
Runnable r = new Updater();
ScheduledExecutorService service = Executors.newScheduledThreadPool(1);
service.scheduleAtFixedRate(r, 0, 3, TimeUnit.SECONDS);
Thread.sleep(10000);
service.shutdown();
}
}
You can use the above approach to run stuff periodically, although a TimerTask may be simpler.
With respect to your output, I suspect your main thread isn't allowing your UpdaterThread to run, since it's in a very tight loop. Note that this would be dependent on CPUs/cores available etc.
Have you considered sleeping in your main thread, or using Thread.yield() ? Note the provisos in that linked page:
When to use yield()?
I would say practically never. Its behaviour isn't standardly defined
and there are generally better ways to perform the tasks that you
might want to perform with yield(): if you're trying to use only a
portion of the CPU, you can do this in a more controllable way by
estimating how much CPU the thread has used in its last chunk of
processing, then sleeping for some amount of time to compensate: see
the sleep() method;
Note also this interesting article on handling thread interruptions.
There are lot of answers but nobody says why his example was not working. System.out is output stream, so after you have started write to this stream JAVA locks it and all other threads will wait while lock is applied to stream. After the stream will have unlocked another thread will be able to work with this stream.
To make your example working you should add Thread.sleep into while loop in the main thread.
I would recommend using a ScheduledExecutorService. To run your UpdaterThread() every 3 seconds, you can do like this:
ScheduledExecutorService scheduler = Executors.newSingleThreadScheduledExecutor();
scheduler.scheduleAtFixedRate(new UpdaterThread(), 0, 3000, TimeUnit.MILLISECONDS);
You can read more here: Java Tutorials - Executor Interfaces.
I have a main form with a button, that when pressed, should start a new count-down timer thread.
This is the code in the button's action listener:
Counter c = new Counter(timeToFinish);
This is the code for the Counter class:
class Counter implements Runnable {
int waitingTime = 0;
Thread myCounter = new Thread(this);
public Counter(int waitingTime)
{
this.waitingTime = waitingTime;
myCounter.run();
}
public void run(){
//Start countdown:
do
{
waitingTime -= 1;
try {
Thread.sleep(1000);
System.out.println(waitingTime);
} catch (InterruptedException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
} while (waitingTime >= 0);
}
}
The problem is, when I create a new instance of the Counter class, it pauses the whole program, not just that thread! The problem must be with "Thread.sleep".
Because you are directly calling the run method.
Instead you should wrap it in a Thread and start the thread.
For e.g., replace
myCounter.run();
by
new Thread(this).start();
Just because you call the run method from the Counter constructor. That's not how it works with threads. You'll have to remove this call, wrap the Runnable in a Thread instance and call start() on the thread:
new Thread(new Counter(2)).start();
You aren't actually start()ing multiple threads.
The Thread.run() method simply runs the code associated with the thread, like any other normal function. It doesn't start a separate thread.
You need to call Thread.start(), to start a new thread and run your code in it.
You should use start() method of your thread. Use
c.start();
otherwise you have a class and you are invoking one of its methods, and of course it is running in main thread and sleeping the main thread.
You're calling run directly, it'll run in the current thread, and sleep the current thread, which I guess is the event thread. This cause the pause in your program.
You should use SwingUtilities class
see
http://www.java2s.com/Code/Java/Threads/InvokeExampleSwingandthread.htm
// Report the result using invokeLater().
SwingUtilities.invokeLater(new Runnable() {
public void run() {
resultLabel.setText("Ready");
setEnabled(true);
}
});
}
};
This code creates and starts a thread:
new Thread() {
#Override
public void run() {
try { player.play(); }
catch ( Exception e ) { System.out.println(e); }
}
}.start();
I'd like to modify this code so that the thread only starts if there are no other threads open at the time! If there are I'd like to close them, and start this one.
You can create an ExecutorService that only allows a single thread with the Executors.newSingleThreadExecutor method. Once you get the single thread executor, you can call execute with a Runnable parameter:
Executor executor = Executors.newSingleThreadExecutor();
executor.execute(new Runnable() { public void run() { /* do something */ } });
My preferred method would be putting a synchronized keyword on the play method
synchronized play()
synchronized methods will lock the function so only one thread will be allowed to execute them at a time.
Here's some more info
https://docs.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/essential/concurrency/syncmeth.html
you could create a static data member for the class(where threading takes place) which is incremented each time an object of that class is called,read that and u get the number of threads started
I have few asynchronous tasks running and I need to wait until at least one of them is finished (in the future probably I'll need to wait util M out of N tasks are finished).
Currently they are presented as Future, so I need something like
/**
* Blocks current thread until one of specified futures is done and returns it.
*/
public static <T> Future<T> waitForAny(Collection<Future<T>> futures)
throws AllFuturesFailedException
Is there anything like this? Or anything similar, not necessary for Future. Currently I loop through collection of futures, check if one is finished, then sleep for some time and check again. This looks like not the best solution, because if I sleep for long period then unwanted delay is added, if I sleep for short period then it can affect performance.
I could try using
new CountDownLatch(1)
and decrease countdown when task is complete and do
countdown.await()
, but I found it possible only if I control Future creation. It is possible, but requires system redesign, because currently logic of tasks creation (sending Callable to ExecutorService) is separated from decision to wait for which Future. I could also override
<T> RunnableFuture<T> AbstractExecutorService.newTaskFor(Callable<T> callable)
and create custom implementation of RunnableFuture with ability to attach listener to be notified when task is finished, then attach such listener to needed tasks and use CountDownLatch, but that means I have to override newTaskFor for every ExecutorService I use - and potentially there will be implementation which do not extend AbstractExecutorService. I could also try wrapping given ExecutorService for same purpose, but then I have to decorate all methods producing Futures.
All these solutions may work but seem very unnatural. It looks like I'm missing something simple, like
WaitHandle.WaitAny(WaitHandle[] waitHandles)
in c#. Are there any well known solutions for such kind of problem?
UPDATE:
Originally I did not have access to Future creation at all, so there were no elegant solution. After redesigning system I got access to Future creation and was able to add countDownLatch.countdown() to execution process, then I can countDownLatch.await() and everything works fine.
Thanks for other answers, I did not know about ExecutorCompletionService and it indeed can be helpful in similar tasks, but in this particular case it could not be used because some Futures are created without any executor - actual task is sent to another server via network, completes remotely and completion notification is received.
simple, check out ExecutorCompletionService.
ExecutorService.invokeAny
Why not just create a results queue and wait on the queue? Or more simply, use a CompletionService since that's what it is: an ExecutorService + result queue.
This is actually pretty easy with wait() and notifyAll().
First, define a lock object. (You can use any class for this, but I like to be explicit):
package com.javadude.sample;
public class Lock {}
Next, define your worker thread. He must notify that lock object when he's finished with his processing. Note that the notify must be in a synchronized block locking on the lock object.
package com.javadude.sample;
public class Worker extends Thread {
private Lock lock_;
private long timeToSleep_;
private String name_;
public Worker(Lock lock, String name, long timeToSleep) {
lock_ = lock;
timeToSleep_ = timeToSleep;
name_ = name;
}
#Override
public void run() {
// do real work -- using a sleep here to simulate work
try {
sleep(timeToSleep_);
} catch (InterruptedException e) {
interrupt();
}
System.out.println(name_ + " is done... notifying");
// notify whoever is waiting, in this case, the client
synchronized (lock_) {
lock_.notify();
}
}
}
Finally, you can write your client:
package com.javadude.sample;
public class Client {
public static void main(String[] args) {
Lock lock = new Lock();
Worker worker1 = new Worker(lock, "worker1", 15000);
Worker worker2 = new Worker(lock, "worker2", 10000);
Worker worker3 = new Worker(lock, "worker3", 5000);
Worker worker4 = new Worker(lock, "worker4", 20000);
boolean started = false;
int numNotifies = 0;
while (true) {
synchronized (lock) {
try {
if (!started) {
// need to do the start here so we grab the lock, just
// in case one of the threads is fast -- if we had done the
// starts outside the synchronized block, a fast thread could
// get to its notification *before* the client is waiting for it
worker1.start();
worker2.start();
worker3.start();
worker4.start();
started = true;
}
lock.wait();
} catch (InterruptedException e) {
break;
}
numNotifies++;
if (numNotifies == 4) {
break;
}
System.out.println("Notified!");
}
}
System.out.println("Everyone has notified me... I'm done");
}
}
As far as I know, Java has no analogous structure to the WaitHandle.WaitAny method.
It seems to me that this could be achieved through a "WaitableFuture" decorator:
public WaitableFuture<T>
extends Future<T>
{
private CountDownLatch countDownLatch;
WaitableFuture(CountDownLatch countDownLatch)
{
super();
this.countDownLatch = countDownLatch;
}
void doTask()
{
super.doTask();
this.countDownLatch.countDown();
}
}
Though this would only work if it can be inserted before the execution code, since otherwise the execution code would not have the new doTask() method. But I really see no way of doing this without polling if you cannot somehow gain control of the Future object before execution.
Or if the future always runs in its own thread, and you can somehow get that thread. Then you could spawn a new thread to join each other thread, then handle the waiting mechanism after the join returns... This would be really ugly and would induce a lot of overhead though. And if some Future objects don't finish, you could have a lot of blocked threads depending on dead threads. If you're not careful, this could leak memory and system resources.
/**
* Extremely ugly way of implementing WaitHandle.WaitAny for Thread.Join().
*/
public static joinAny(Collection<Thread> threads, int numberToWaitFor)
{
CountDownLatch countDownLatch = new CountDownLatch(numberToWaitFor);
foreach(Thread thread in threads)
{
(new Thread(new JoinThreadHelper(thread, countDownLatch))).start();
}
countDownLatch.await();
}
class JoinThreadHelper
implements Runnable
{
Thread thread;
CountDownLatch countDownLatch;
JoinThreadHelper(Thread thread, CountDownLatch countDownLatch)
{
this.thread = thread;
this.countDownLatch = countDownLatch;
}
void run()
{
this.thread.join();
this.countDownLatch.countDown();
}
}
If you can use CompletableFutures instead then there is CompletableFuture.anyOf that does what you want, just call join on the result:
CompletableFuture.anyOf(futures).join()
You can use CompletableFutures with executors by calling the CompletableFuture.supplyAsync or runAsync methods.
Since you don't care which one finishes, why not just have a single WaitHandle for all threads and wait on that? Whichever one finishes first can set the handle.
See this option:
public class WaitForAnyRedux {
private static final int POOL_SIZE = 10;
public static <T> T waitForAny(Collection<T> collection) throws InterruptedException, ExecutionException {
List<Callable<T>> callables = new ArrayList<Callable<T>>();
for (final T t : collection) {
Callable<T> callable = Executors.callable(new Thread() {
#Override
public void run() {
synchronized (t) {
try {
t.wait();
} catch (InterruptedException e) {
}
}
}
}, t);
callables.add(callable);
}
BlockingQueue<Runnable> queue = new ArrayBlockingQueue<Runnable>(POOL_SIZE);
ExecutorService executorService = new ThreadPoolExecutor(POOL_SIZE, POOL_SIZE, 0, TimeUnit.SECONDS, queue);
return executorService.invokeAny(callables);
}
static public void main(String[] args) throws InterruptedException, ExecutionException {
final List<Integer> integers = new ArrayList<Integer>();
for (int i = 0; i < POOL_SIZE; i++) {
integers.add(i);
}
(new Thread() {
public void run() {
Integer notified = null;
try {
notified = waitForAny(integers);
} catch (InterruptedException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
} catch (ExecutionException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
System.out.println("notified=" + notified);
}
}).start();
synchronized (integers) {
integers.wait(3000);
}
Integer randomInt = integers.get((new Random()).nextInt(POOL_SIZE));
System.out.println("Waking up " + randomInt);
synchronized (randomInt) {
randomInt.notify();
}
}
}