Frequent concurrent method calls in Java data-logger - java

I'm implementing a Java Data-logger which reads, at precise intervals of time, some datas from different production machines. To avoid having one call blocking the following ones, I was thinking of making a new thread for every call to the parser class.
However, this would require the creation of many threads, and then to stop them, every 10 seconds (which is my reading interval). A non-concurrent approach would cause me to have many delays when the parser gets an exception (due to the possible timeouts of the IoT devices i'm using) making the next calls to be delayed.
while(!error){
//JDBC connections and other calls here
//Queryresult is a ResultSet that returns all the machine addresses needing to be read
while(queryresult.next()){
//Parser.ParseSpeedV is the method I need to call concurrently
Double v = Parser.ParseSpeedV(..Params..);
Double s = v*queryresult.getDouble("const");
st = conn.createStatement();
st.executeUpdate("INSERT INTO ...");
}
st.close();
Thread.sleep(10000);
}
What is the best way to achieve a concurrent method calls (to the method ParseSpeedV) without having the overhead caused by thousands of thread starting every day?

What you want to use is a ScheduledExecutorService. It allows you to add tasks that are repeated at a fixed rate or fixed delay. So you can i.E. add a task that fetches data from a device every 10 seconds. The Executor service then makes sure that it is run in that interval with resonably low deviation.
final ScheduledExecutorService myScheduledExecutor = Executors.newScheduledThreadPool(16);
myScheduledExecutor.scheduleAtFixedRate(myTask, 0L, 10L, TimeUnit.SECONDS);

Your situation is the perfect use case for a Thread Pool. This part of Java's library that's built on top of simple Threads and allows you to create a fixed-sized pool of threads and reuse them over and over:
ExecutorService executor = Executors.newFixedThreadPool(5);
Any time you want to do some work you add it to the executor
executor.execute(new Runnable() {
#Override
public void run() {
// Do some work
}
});
If you call execute more than 5 times, the extra runnables are held in a queue until there's room.
Now, if you need to receive information from these runnning tasks, you need to write a class that implements Runnable and accepts some kind of object that wishes to have the information that your runnable has:
public class Worker implements Runnable {
Consumer consumer;
public Worker(Consumer consumer) {
this.consumer = consumer;
}
#Override public void run() {
// Do work
value = // get value
consumer.put(value);
}
}
Now all you have to do is define a Consumer class that operates on the value (has that put() method, or whatever) and create your Workers like this:
Consumer consumer = new Consumer();
Worker worker = new Worker(myConsumer);
executor.execute(worker);

Related

How to restrict the number of threads using a Java service

My requirement is to restrict the number of threads which uses my service at any point in time. Executor service is not helping me here as my problem space is little different. Let me explain with an example.
I have exposed a REST API which does one job. On the fly, my controller invokes one of the services for the job execution. But I have to make sure only 'n' threads access the service. That means threads/API-access will be continuously growing but at some place, I have to keep them in waiting if 'n' threads are already using the service. And the end of the execution I should get the response from the service and returns back to the endpoint and then to the client.
If I use FutureTask and callable, how and where will I write the .get() method? Because my threads will be continuously growing in number and dynamic in nature.
Hope the problem statement is clear, let me know if more clarification required.
If you just want to restrict the max number of threads which can access your service, then you might use Bounded Semaphore and can provide the max number of permits.
Here is the sample code (assuming that your service is singleton) :-
public class SampleService {
private Semaphore semaphore = new Semaphore(n, true);
public void someMothod() {
try {
semaphore.acquire();
// execute the task
} catch (InterruptedException e) {
} finally {
semaphore.release();
}
}
}
You have to make sure that only one instance of semaphore is created. If you can have multiple instances of your service in the application, then make semaphore static.
private static Semaphore semaphore = new Semaphore(n, true);
You can use ExecutorCompletionService for this.
Just create an ExecutorService with fixed no of threads as stated below
ExecutorService pool = Executors.newFixedThreadPool(5);
Now create an ExecutorCompletionService using this ExecutorService.
ExecutorCompletionService completionService = new ExecutorCompletionService(pool);
Then after submitting your task you can iterate and get the future and the job result from the future as well. This won't block the thread as being done when you use Future returned from just an ExecutorService.
for(int i = 0; i < worker size ; i++) {
Future future = completionService.take();
Object content = future.get();
}

ExecutorService SingleThreadExecutor

I have a list of objects, from which depending on user interaction some objects need to do work asynchronically. Something like this:
for(TheObject o : this.listOfObjects) {
o.doWork();
}
The class TheObject implements an ExecutorService (SingleThread!), which is used to do the work. Every object of type TheObject instantiates an ExecutorService. I don't want to make lasagna code. I don't have enough Objects at the same time, to make an extra extraction layer with thread pooling needed.
I want to cite the Java Documentation about CachedThreadPools:
Threads that have not been used for sixty seconds are terminated and
removed from the cache. Thus, a pool that remains idle for long enough
will not consume any resources.
First question: Is this also true for a SingleThreadExecutor? Does the thread get terminated? JavaDoc doesn't say anything about SingleThreadExecutor. It wouldn't even matter in this application, as I have an amount of objects I can count on one hand. Just curiosity.
Furthermore the doWork() method of TheObject needs to call the ExecutorService#.submit() method to do the work async. Is it possible (I bet it is) to call the doWork() method implicitly? Is this a viable way of designing an async method?
void doWork() {
if(!isRunningAsync) {
myExecutor.submit(doWork());
} else {
// Do Work...
}
}
First question: Is this also true for a SingleThreadExecutor? Does the thread get terminated?
Take a look at the source code of Executors, comparing the implementations of newCachedThreadPool and newSingleThreadExecutor:
public static ExecutorService newCachedThreadPool() {
return new ThreadPoolExecutor(0, Integer.MAX_VALUE,
60L, TimeUnit.SECONDS,
new SynchronousQueue<Runnable>());
}
public static ExecutorService newSingleThreadExecutor() {
return new FinalizableDelegatedExecutorService
(new ThreadPoolExecutor(1, 1,
0L, TimeUnit.MILLISECONDS,
new LinkedBlockingQueue<Runnable>()));
}
The primary difference (of interest here) is the 60L, TimeUnit.SECONDS and 0L, TimeUnit.MILLISECONDS.
Effectively (but not actually), these parameters are passed to ThreadPoolExecutor.setKeepAliveTime. Looking at the Javadoc of that method:
A time value of zero will cause excess threads to terminate immediately after executing tasks.
where "excess threads" actually refers to "threads in excess of the core pool size".
The cached thread pool is created with zero core threads, and an (effectively) unlimited number of non-core threads; as such, any of its threads can be terminated after the keep alive time.
The single thread executor is created with 1 core thread and zero non-core threads; as such, there are no threads which can be terminated after the keep alive time: its one core thread remains active until you shut down the entire ThreadPoolExecutor.
(Thanks to #GPI for pointing out that I was wrong in my interpretation before).
First question:
Threads that have not been used for sixty seconds are terminated and removed from the cache. Thus, a pool that remains idle for long enough will not consume any resources.
Is this also true for a SingleThreadExecutor?
SingleThreadExecutor works differently. It don't have time-out concept due to the values configured during creation.
Termination of SingleThread is possible. But it guarantees that always one Thread exists to handle tasks from task queue.
From newSingleThreadExecutor documentation:
public static ExecutorService newSingleThreadExecutor()
Creates an Executor that uses a single worker thread operating off an unbounded queue. (Note however that if this single thread terminates due to a failure during execution prior to shutdown, a new one will take its place if needed to execute subsequent tasks.)
Tasks are guaranteed to execute sequentially, and no more than one task will be active at any given time. Unlike the otherwise equivalent newFixedThreadPool(1) the returned executor is guaranteed not to be reconfigurable to use additional threads.
Second question:
Furthermore the doWork() method of TheObject needs to call the ExecutorService#.submit() method to do the work async
for(TheObject o : this.listOfObjects) {
o.doWork();
}
can be changed to
ExecutorService executorService = Executors.newSingleThreadExecutor();
executorService.execute(new Runnable() {
public void run() {
System.out.println("Asynchronous task");
}
});
executorService.shutdown();
with Callable or Runnable interface and add your doWork() code in run() method or call() method. The task will be executed concurrently.

Java - How to log metrics from a ThreadPool?

I wrapped a ThreadPoolExecutor in an implementation of ExecutorService of my own, just to send it any filesystem writing task, so they would be treated sequencially and one-by-one. (No need to harass this poor disk writing head.)
The wrapper comes in handy by:
allowing me to Inject this ThreadPool as a Guice Singleton pretty much everywhere I need it
telling me in real-time how much more work there is left to do
This last feature is acomplished by the call to logUtils.writingHeartbeat(int) which logs a message about how many jobs are still in the queue if a "sufficient" time has been elapsed since last logging. It works pretty well in regards of writing logs at the desired intervals, but always tells me there is 0 files remaining to write. Which sounds fishy given the execution times.
What am I doing wrong?
#Singleton
public class WritersThreadPool implements ExecutorService {
private final ThreadPoolExecutor innerPool;
private final LogUtils logUtils;
#Inject
public WritersThreadPool(LogUtils logUtils) {
innerPool = new ThreadPoolExecutor(1, 1, 0L, TimeUnit.MILLISECONDS, new LinkedBlockingQueue<Runnable>());
this.logUtils = logUtils;
}
#Override
public Future<?> submit(final Runnable r) {
return innerPool.submit(new Callable<Void>() {
#Override
public Void call() throws Exception {
r.run();
logUtils.writingHeartbeat(innerPool.getQueue().size());
return null;
}
});
}
(...) // Other implemented methods with no special behavior.
}
I share #chubbsondubs opinion, that there must be a synchronization issue elsewhere in the code.
My suggestions to prove some things were:
Try logging getTaskCountand getCompletedTaskCount.
This led to your observation, that there is indeed only 1 Task in the queue at one given time.
Instead of composition, extend ThreadPoolExecutor and use the afterExecute hook. Maybe you can investigate who is synchronizing that should not that way.
So I think the problem is that you are sequentially checking the queue size after you have fully run the Runnable being submitted. So the Runnable has fully completed it's work then it check the queue size which is going to be empty unless you had exhausted the number of threads in the innerPool. In other words there has to be something waiting in the queue for it to print out anything other than 0. The current job is being run by a thread so it's not on the queue.

ThreadPoolExecutor's getActiveCount()

I have a ThreadPoolExecutor that seems to be lying to me when I call getActiveCount(). I haven't done a lot of multithreaded programming however, so perhaps I'm doing something incorrectly.
Here's my TPE
#Override
public void afterPropertiesSet() throws Exception {
BlockingQueue<Runnable> workQueue;
int maxQueueLength = threadPoolConfiguration.getMaximumQueueLength();
if (maxQueueLength == 0) {
workQueue = new LinkedBlockingQueue<Runnable>();
} else {
workQueue = new LinkedBlockingQueue<Runnable>(maxQueueLength);
}
pool = new ThreadPoolExecutor(
threadPoolConfiguration.getCorePoolSize(),
threadPoolConfiguration.getMaximumPoolSize(),
threadPoolConfiguration.getKeepAliveTime(),
TimeUnit.valueOf(threadPoolConfiguration.getTimeUnit()),
workQueue,
// Default thread factory creates normal-priority,
// non-daemon threads.
Executors.defaultThreadFactory(),
// Run any rejected task directly in the calling thread.
// In this way no records will be lost due to rejection
// however, no records will be added to the workQueue
// while the calling thread is processing a Task, so set
// your queue-size appropriately.
//
// This also means MaxThreadCount+1 tasks may run
// concurrently. If you REALLY want a max of MaxThreadCount
// threads don't use this.
new ThreadPoolExecutor.CallerRunsPolicy());
}
In this class I also have a DAO that I pass into my Runnable (FooWorker), like so:
#Override
public void addTask(FooRecord record) {
if (pool == null) {
throw new FooException(ERROR_THREAD_POOL_CONFIGURATION_NOT_SET);
}
pool.execute(new FooWorker(context, calculator, dao, record));
}
FooWorker runs record (the only non-singleton) through a state machine via calculator then sends the transitions to the database via dao, like so:
public void run() {
calculator.calculate(record);
dao.save(record);
}
Once my main thread is done creating new tasks I try and wait to make sure all threads finished successfully:
while (pool.getActiveCount() > 0) {
recordHandler.awaitTermination(terminationTimeout,
terminationTimeoutUnit);
}
What I'm seeing from output logs (which are presumably unreliable due to the threading) is that getActiveCount() is returning zero too early, and the while() loop is exiting while my last threads are still printing output from calculator.
Note I've also tried calling pool.shutdown() then using awaitTermination but then the next time my job runs the pool is still shut down.
My only guess is that inside a thread, when I send data into the dao (since it's a singleton created by Spring in the main thread...), java is considering the thread inactive since (I assume) it's processing in/waiting on the main thread.
Intuitively, based only on what I'm seeing, that's my guess. But... Is that really what's happening? Is there a way to "do it right" without putting a manual incremented variable at the top of run() and a decremented at the end to track the number of threads?
If the answer is "don't pass in the dao", then wouldn't I have to "new" a DAO for every thread? My process is already a (beautiful, efficient) beast, but that would really suck.
As the JavaDoc of getActiveCount states, it's an approximate value: you should not base any major business logic decisions on this.
If you want to wait for all scheduled tasks to complete, then you should simply use
pool.shutdown();
pool.awaitTermination(terminationTimeout, terminationTimeoutUnit);
If you need to wait for a specific task to finish, you should use submit() instead of execute() and then check the Future object for completion (either using isDone() if you want to do it non-blocking or by simply calling get() which blocks until the task is done).
The documentation suggests that the method getActiveCount() on ThreadPoolExecutor is not an exact number:
getActiveCount
public int getActiveCount()
Returns the approximate number of threads that are actively executing tasks.
Returns: the number of threads
Personally, when I am doing multithreaded work such as this, I use a variable that I increment as I add tasks, and decrement as I grab their output.

java-Executor Framework

Please look at my following code....
private static final int NTHREDS = 10;
ExecutorService executor = Executors.newFixedThreadPool(NTHREDS);
while(rs.next()){
webLink=rs.getString(1);
FirstName=rs.getString(2);
MiddleName=rs.getString(3);
Runnable worker = new MyRunnable(webLink,FirstName,MiddleName);// this interface has run method....
executor.execute(worker);
}
//added
public class MyRunnable implements Runnable {
MyRunnable(String webLink,String FirstName,String MiddleName){
** Assigning Values...***
}
#Override
public void run() {
long sum = 0;
**Calling method to crawl by passing those Values**
try {
Thread.sleep(200);
}
catch (InterruptedException e)
{
e.printStackTrace();
}
}
}
In this part if the resultset(rs) having 100 records excutor creating 100 threads..... I need to run this process with in 10 threads. I need your help to know how to get control of threads.. If any thread has completed its task then it should process the immediate available task from the Result Set. Is it possible to achieve using executor framework.
Thanks...
vijay365
The code you've already posted does this. Your code will not immediately spawn 100 threads. It will spawn 10 threads that consume tasks from a queue containing your Runnables.
From the Executors.newFixedThreadPool Javadocs:
Creates a thread pool that reuses a
fixed set of threads operating off a
shared unbounded queue.
Instead of using a static number of threads (10 in this case) you should determine the number dynamically:
final int NTHREADS = Runtime.getRuntime().availableProcessors();
Also, I don't get why you are calling Thread.sleep?
ResultSet is probably a JDBC query result.
This design is almost certain to be doomed to failure.
The JDBC interface implementations are not thread-safe.
ResultSets are scare resources that should be closed in the same scope in which they were created. If you pass them around, you're asking for trouble.
Multi-threaded code is hard to write well and even harder to debug if incorrect.
You are almost certainly headed in the wrong direction with this design. I'd bet a large sum of money that you're guilty of premature optimization. You are hoping that multiple threads will make your code faster, but what will happen is ten threads time slicing on one CPU and taking the same time or longer. (Context switching takes time, too.)
A slightly better idea would be to load the ResultSet into an object or collection, close the ResultSet, and then do some multi-threaded processing on that returned object.
Try executor.submit(worker);

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