I'm trying to create thread safe queue in java. I've come across this example:
class ProducerConsumer<T> {
private static final int BUFFER_MAX_SIZE = 42;
private List<T> buffer = new LinkedList<>();
synchronized void produce(T value) throws InterruptedException {
while (buffer.size() == BUFFER_MAX_SIZE) {
wait();
}
buffer.add(value);
notify();
}
synchronized T consume() throws InterruptedException {
while (buffer.size() == 0) {
wait();
}
T result = buffer.remove(0);
notify();
return result;
}
}
I'm new to java. In my understanding those two 'synchronized' keywords would prevent contention inside each method, but not when both methods are called simultaneously. E.g. thread P calls produce, locks method, thread C calls consume, locks other method, then one tries to extract element from list, another tries to insert element, thread exception arises.
My question: Is this example broken?
Or maybe I'm missing something and it's ok.
JLS, §17.1 is quite explicit about the mechanism:
...
A synchronized method (§8.4.3.6) automatically performs a lock action when it is invoked; its body is not executed until the lock action has successfully completed. If the method is an instance method, it locks the monitor associated with the instance for which it was invoked (that is, the object that will be known as this during execution of the body of the method). If the method is static, it locks the monitor associated with the Class object that represents the class in which the method is defined. If execution of the method's body is ever completed, either normally or abruptly, an unlock action is automatically performed on that same monitor.
...
Thus, it is guaranteed that at one point in time on one object at most one thread is executing either produce(...) or consume(). It is not possible that, at one point in time, one thread executes produce(...) on an object while another thread executes consume() on the same object.
The call to wait() in consume() releases the intrinsic lock and blocks execution. The call to notify() in produce(...) notifies one wait()ing thread (if any), so it can fight for the lock as soon as the lock is released by the current owner. Notice that a call to notify() does not release the intrinsic lock. It just wakes up a wait()ing thread. This can be made observable with the following code snippet:
class Ideone {
private static final Object lock = new Object();
public static void main(String[] args) {
printWithThreadNamePrefix("Start");
Thread waiter = new Thread(Ideone::waiter);
waiter.start();
// Give waiter some time to a) start and b) acquire the intrinsic lock
try {
Thread.sleep(500);
} catch (InterruptedException e) {
}
final Thread notifier = new Thread(Ideone::notifier);
notifier.start();
while (true) {
try {
waiter.join();
break;
} catch (InterruptedException e) {
}
}
printWithThreadNamePrefix("End");
}
private static void waiter() {
synchronized (lock) {
printWithThreadNamePrefix("Waiting...");
while (true) {
try {
lock.wait();
break;
} catch (InterruptedException e) {
}
}
printWithThreadNamePrefix("... done waiting");
}
}
private static void printWithThreadNamePrefix(String msg) {
System.out.println(String.format(
"%s: %s",
Thread.currentThread().getName(),
msg));
}
private static void notifier() {
synchronized (lock) {
printWithThreadNamePrefix("notifying");
lock.notify();
while (true) {
}
}
}
}
Ideone demo
The program will never terminate. Although thread two calls notify(), it then enters an endless loop, never actually releasing the intrinsic lock. Thus, one never has a chance to acquire the intrinsic lock, and the program "hangs" (it is neither a deadlock, nor a livelock, it simply cannot proceed).
The things I recommend to change are:
declare private List<T> buffer additionally as final
call notifyAll() instead of notify() in order to wake all waiting threads (they will still execute sequentially, for details see this question by Sergey Mikhanov and its answers)
Related
I was looking for a way to make one thread wait/sleep until another thread signalled that something was ready. The waiting thread should wake up, process the data that was made available, then go back to sleep until the other thread signalled again.
The simplest method I could find was Object.wait() and Object.notify(), which behaved like a semaphore initialised to value 0. However, without the synchronized statements around notify/wait, Java always threw IllegalMonitorStateException when the thread was not the monitor owner. So I simply put them around the code like shown below.
THREAD 1: running infinite loop
public class Main {
private Handler handler; // only one instance (singleton pattern)
public void listen() {
while (true) {
try {
synchronized (handler) {
handler.wait();
int value = handler.getSize();
// do something
}
} catch (InterruptedException e) {
// ...
}
}
}
}
THREAD 2: Some other class calls removeItem
public class Handler {
// SINGLETON PATTERN - ONLY ONE INSTANCE
private ArrayList<Integer> sharedList;
private Handler() {
sharedList = new ArrayList<>();
}
public void addItem(Integer i) {
synchronized (sharedList) {
// add to list
}
}
public void removeItem(int i) {
synchronized (sharedList) {
// remove item
// notify that something is removed
synchronized (this) {
this.notify(); // this == handler
}
}
}
public int getSize() {
synchronized (sharedList) {
return sharedList.size();
}
}
}
It seems to work perfectly fine but not sure if there is a hidden bug.
My question is: Is this safe? Does wait release the instance lock for handler/this so notify can acquire the lock?
Synchronized blocks are safe. The statement synchronized(obj) acquires the lock of the argument obj, so you can call wait and notify on it. They both require that the current thread holds the lock on the object.
You have to be careful about the double-locking you have in removeItem where you lock two objects. If you ever need this, you have to make sure that you always lock them in the same order, otherwise, you may create a deadlock.
Is there anyway one single thread can wait and notify itself to "wake" up, or only
I got something like this but it isnt working and i get the illegalmonitorstateexception
public class test extends Thread{
private int n;
private int lim;
public test(int lim) {
n = 0;
this.lim=lim;
}
public synchronized void add() throws InterruptedException {
n++;
notify();
}
#Override
public void run() {
while(n!=lim){
try {
wait();
} catch (InterruptedException e) {
// TODO Auto-generated catch block
e.printStackTrace();
}
}
//do something
}
}
Main
The confusion here appears to be with the idea of "notifying a thread". You don't (usually) call notify, notifyAll or wait of a Thread object. Invoke it any object that you are using as a lock. (A particular problem with Thread is that it is used as a lock for a particular purpose already (Thread.join).)
So you need some kind of lock object:
private final Object lock = new Object();
To wait on the object, you need to hold the lock and the condition should be checked in a while loop.
synchronized (lock) {
while (!some_condition) {
lock.wait();
}
...
}
To notify, hold the lock, notify (you might as well go for notifyAll, it'll be at least as good as notify and sometimes it may be necessary but not caught in testing) and change the condition.
synchronized (lock) {
lock.notifyAll();
some_condition = true;
}
Also, it good practice not to subclass Thread. Goes for other unnecessary subclassing too. Typically you would create a Runnable and pass it to the constructor.
IllegalMonitorStateException means you "don't own the monitor". To do that:
synchronized (this) {
wait()
}
What do you want to trigger the notification? As commented above, if a Thread is waiting, it can't take any action. Maybe you want to use a timeout?
Update:
To wait() until lim is reached, add this to the add() method:
if (n >= lim) {
notify();
}
I have a problem with a task. Namely, we must write a class, which is called from Threads. One of the methods is:
public static synchronized void waitForResults() {
}
So the Master-Thread calls this method, and then the Master-Thread triggers an other Thread, that new work is to be done. How can I tell the Master-Thread that he sleep, while the Worker-Thread works?
Using the wait() and the notify() mechanism. Every java object posses those methods. A mechanism block a thread until some condition is met.
For exampe, if your main thread calls another thread that will change the value of the result variable. Then, you could wait on the result until it gets notified by some other thread:
private static StringBuilder result= new StringBuilder();
public static void mainThreadWork() {
new WorkerThread().start();
synchronized (result) {
System.out.println(result.toString()); //prints ""
result.wait();
System.out.println(result.toString()); //prints "modified"
}
}
private static class WorkerThread extends Thread {
#Override
public void run() {
synchronized(result) {
result.append("modified");
result.notify();
}
}
}
What happens: when a thread calls a wait on some object, it yields a CPU to other Threads and (as the method name says) waits for another thread to send a notify signal on that thread. notify yields a CPU to the thread that was waiting on that object.
Some rules must be respected, for example, wait() and notify() must be invoked inside a synchronized block.
Since Java 1.5 there are more abstract levels of synchronization and wait-notify mechanisms, so you could check java's concurrent library. It offers you to lock and wait for the object on more abstract object-like level:
private Lock lock = new ReentrantLock();
private Condition condition = lock.newCondition();
So instead of synchronized blocks and waits and notifies you could just:
public static void mainThreadWork() {
lock.lock();
new WorkerThread().start();
System.out.println(result.toString()); //prints ""
condition.await();
System.out.println(result.toString()); //prints "modified"
lock.unlock();
}
And in the WorkerThread:
#Override
public void run() {
lock.lock();
result.append("modified");
condition.singal();
lock.unlock();
}
I don't see how the following code produces output that appears to contravene the definition of an object lock. Surely only one thread should be allowed to print the "acquired lock" message yet they both do?
class InterruptThreadGroup {
public static void main(String[] args) {
Object lock = new Object();
MyThread mt1 = new MyThread(lock);
MyThread mt2 = new MyThread(lock);
mt1.setName("A");
mt1.start();
mt2.setName("B");
mt2.start();
try {
Thread.sleep(2000);
} catch (InterruptedException e) {
}
// Thread.currentThread().getThreadGroup().interrupt();
}
}
class MyThread extends Thread {
private Object lock;
public MyThread(Object l) {
this.lock = l;
}
public void run() {
synchronized (lock) {
System.out.println(getName() + " acquired lock");
try {
lock.wait();
} catch (InterruptedException e) {
System.out.println(getName() + " interrupted.");
}
System.out.println(getName() + " terminating.");
}
}
}
It is because the call to lock.wait() releases the lock, allowing the second thread to enter the synchronized block. Extract from the javadoc
The thread releases ownership of this monitor and waits until another thread notifies threads waiting on this object's monitor to wake up either through a call to the notify method or the notifyAll method. The thread then waits until it can re-obtain ownership of the monitor and resumes execution.
Note that there are a few issues in your code such as:
you should not wait outside of a while loop
there is no notify anywhere so your wait could last forever
it is a better practice to have your task implement Runnable and pass it as an argument to a Thread's constructor than to extend Thread directly.
Either you should use synchronized block or wait call . using them together will not work. if you use wait call then the lock is released by the object in synchronized block.
So remove the line lock.wait and your programme will work as you want. synchronize block will handle all lock automatically.
if you are using wait then must use notify.
Here is good thread about this: Why must wait() always be in synchronized block
I have a queue with some blocking mechanism in "Add" and "Get" methods, where first thread adds data and second thread gets data.
public synchronized MyObj getData() {
synchronized (myLock) {
synchronized (this) {
if (isEmpty()) {
wait(0);
}
}
return getData();
}
}
public synchronized void addData(MyObj data) {
if (!isFull()) {
putData(data);
synchronized (this) {
notify();
}
}
}
In the code above, if first thread tries to get data and queue is empty i put in wait via wait(0) until other thread add data to queue an release from waiting via notify().
Now I want to add another "lock" when queue is full and some one tries to add more data to it:
public synchronized MyObj getData() {
synchronized (myLock) {
synchronized (this) {
if (isEmpty()) {
wait(0);
}
}
synchronized (this) {
notify();
}
return getData();
}
}
public synchronized void addData(MyObj data) {
synchronized (myLock) {
synchronized (this) {
if (isFull()) {
wait(0);
}
}
}
synchronized (this) {
notify();
}
PutData(data);
}
The result is not what I expect , I guess that i get a dead lock cause process is stuck.
UPDATE
This is how I get data:
queueSize--;
startPointer = (startPointer + 1) % mqueueSize;
data = (String) queue[startPointer];
this is how i add data
queueSize++;
endPointer = (endPointer + 1) % mqueueSize;
queue[endPointer] = data;
public synchronized boolean isEmpty() {
return queueSize== 0;
}
public synchronized boolean isFull() {
return queueSize== mqueueSize;
}
Why do you have three synchronized statements? The wait(0) only releases the lock on this, so just keep that one and dump the synchronized from the method and the synchronized(myLock).
Whenever you call wait on some object (in this case you are calling on this), the lock on that object is automatically released to allow the other thread to proceed. But you are never calling wait on myLock (and nor should you, because you are calling on this already). That part is redundant and causes the deadlock.
Consider this scenario: the thread that is supposed to add takes the lock on myLock but finds the queue full, so it waits. This wait does not release the lock on myLock. The other thread wants to take data but cannot enter the synchronized block because the first thread did not release the lock on myLock.
Conclusion: remove the synchronized(myLock) blocks.
Why you don't take a look in java.util.BlockingQueue. Probably it will be useful in your situation.
Particularly take a look at java.util.LinkedBlockingQueue, where if you specify the queue's capacity in the constructor, then the queue will block.
Remove the synchronized keyword from your method signatures, as that implies you hold the this monitor for the whole method call -- the synchronized(this) blocks are simply redundant.
EDIT:
...Then call wait and notify on myLock rather than this. And forget completely about synchronizing on this. This is because while waiting (on this in your current code), you're not releasing the myLock lock, so the other thread is not able to get to notify().
Replace if with while. It won't hurt to double check, if the collection really become not empty/not full.
You don't really need two locks. Single lock will work almost as well and should be much simpler.
public synchronized T get()
{
while(isEmpty())
wait(0);
notifyAll();
return super.get();
}
public synchronized put(T t)
{
while(isFull())
wait(0);
super.put(t);
notifyAll();
}
All threads will wake up when something changes. But if they can't do their work, they will wait for next notify.
As already mentioned, your code has too many synchronized annotations. Also, the condition to wait on is checked in an if conditional, but it should ideally be checked in a while loop to avoid spurious wakeups. Here is the outline of the code that fixes these.
// _isEmpty and _getData are private unsynchronized methods
public MyData get() throws InterruptedException {
// wait and notify should be called from a block
// synchronized on the same lock object (here myLock)
synchronized (myLock) {
// the condition should be tested in a while loop
// to avoid issues with spurious wakeups
while (_isEmpty()) {
// releases the lock and wait for a notify to be called
myLock.wait();
}
// when control reaches here, we know for sure that
// the queue is not empty
MyData data = _getData();
// try to wake up all waiting threads - maybe some thread
// is waiting for the queue not to be full
myLock.notifyAll();
}
}
// _isFull and _putData are private unsynchronized methods
public void put(MyData obj) throws InterruptedException {
synchronized (myLock) {
while (_isFull()) {
myLock.wait();
}
_putData(obj);
myLock.notifyAll();
}
}