Is this code snippet about semaphore necessary? - java

Here's the code from Java Concurrency in Practice, showing how to make execute block when the work queue is full by using a Semaphore to bound the task injection rate. The semaphore is equal to the pool size plus the number of queued tasks you want to allow.
public class BoundedExecutor {
private final Executor exec;
private final Semaphore semaphore;
public BoundedExecutor(Executor exec, int bound) {
this.exec = exec;
this.semaphore = new Semaphore(bound);
}
public void submitTask(final Runnable command)
throws InterruptedException {
semaphore.acquire();
try {
exec.execute(new Runnable() {
public void run() {
try {
command.run();
} finally {
semaphore.release();
}
}
});
} catch (RejectedExecutionException e) {
semaphore.release();
}
}
}
My question is about
catch (RejectedExecutionException e) { semaphore.release(); }
Isn't it unnecessary while we have semaphore.acquire(); above?
If the work queue is full then 'semaphore.acquire' should be block, and there would be no RejectedExecutionException.

The documentation says throws RejectedExecutionException if this task cannot be accepted for execution. You want to be certain that the semaphore is released if the task can't be accepted for any reason.

The RejectedExecutionException can be thrown by the executor if the task cannot be accepted. If this happened, it means that the semaphore was already acquired, but the executor decided it was not able to accept the task.
This behavior depends on the implementation of the executor, so it is independent from calling acquire() successfully and if it does happen, the semaphore must be released to indicate that there is a free slot for a new task.
Ideally the method should return true or false to indicate whether this happened or not.

Even if you assume that the executor will never reject your request (e.g. because you believe the bound is lower than executor's pool size + queue limit), it's still good practice not to rely on your assumptions. The above code will work correctly even if your assumption is wrong, and won't have any negative effect if your assumption is correct.
As it stands, the code above doesn't set any bounds on the executor and only sets bound on the semaphore, so it certainly is possible to choose a bound that's higher than what the executor will accept.

I think you are confusing the inner executor (passed by parameter in the constructor) with the outer one (BoundedExecutor). Even if the BoundedExecutor class has the executor word in the name, and has a method that submits tasks, it is not implementing the Executor interface.
It is kind of a decorator class. What it does is to offer the functionality a normal Executor offers but limiting the number of tasks that can be submitted.
The exception you mention is thrown by the inner executor's execute method. Because the critical section can throw Exceptions, you need to release the lock in the finally clause. Otherwise you would be incorrectly counting one up for a failed submission.

Related

Shutdown executor without knowing when it will finish all the tasks

I have a task that should wait for a condition (OpenCms startup) and then notify some listeners.
to do this I used an ExecutorService:
public void check(final ExecutorService executorService) {
executorService.submit(() -> {
waitForInitialization();
notifyListeners();
});
}
private void waitForInitialization() {
while (OpenCms.getRunLevel() < OpenCms.RUNLEVEL_4_SERVLET_ACCESS) {
try {
TimeUnit.SECONDS.sleep(10);
} catch (InterruptedException e) {
Thread.currentThread().interrupt();
}
}
}
the question is how to shutdown this executor. I could use awaitTermination but I should provide a timeout which I don't know exactly. it could vary from one environment to the other.
the question is how to shutdown this executor. I could use awaitTermination but I should provide a timeout which I don't know exactly. it could vary from one environment to the other.
The question I would ask is do you need a timeout at all? Often if you know that a particular job will finish at some point I just wait for a timeout Long.MAX_VALUE – effectively forever. Other times I'll do something like:
threadPool.shutdown();
threadPool.awaitTermination(...) of some small value (maybe 10 seconds)
threadPool.shutdownNow(); to interrupt the threads
threadPool.awaitTermination(...); of Long.MAX_VALUE because I know the jobs will finish eventually
it could vary from one environment to the other.
If it could vary then maybe you should be able to calculate what a proper timeout would be for each environment?
Lastly, don't be afraid of passing in a ThreadFactory that creates daemon threads. For some jobs I shutdown() the thread-pool but never wait for them to complete because I don't care about their status so I create the threads in the pool with daemon enabled maybe using something like the following thread-factory.
/** Thread factory which sets name and optionally daemon */
public class PoolNameThreadFactory implements ThreadFactory {
private final String poolName;
private final Boolean daemon;
private final AtomicInteger threadNum = new AtomicInteger(0);
public PoolNameThreadFactory(String poolName) {
this(poolName, null);
}
public PoolNameThreadFactory(String poolName, boolean daemon) {
this(poolName, (Boolean) daemon);
}
private PoolNameThreadFactory(String poolName, Boolean daemon) {
this.poolName = poolName;
this.daemon = daemon;
}
#Override
public Thread newThread(Runnable r) {
Thread thread = new Thread(r);
thread.setName(poolName + '-' + threadNum.incrementAndGet());
if (daemon != null) {
thread.setDaemon(daemon);
}
return thread;
}
}
Based on the provided information, I'd clearly recommend an event-based approach. Especially knowing that in your own code there is a call like notifyListeners(). In fact, that's the way to go.
In summary, once the precondition is met somewhere in your app, just notify the listeners of this event. In your example, the "OpenCms run level" change is typically an event. So, just go for an Observer pattern, or a pub-sub model to observe or monitor these changes.
If you modify your approach, you will not have to worry about the waiting time around the initialization, except if you wish to handle the absence of event specifically. That would be done again after some timeout, but with the advantage of not blocking an executor thread.

HealthChecker for Java Process

I want to create a health checker, which will check the health of a java process. My process does a lot of things and is multi threaded. Various exceptions could be thrown, like Service / SQL / IO, etc. My plan is to call the HealthChecker to check for the process, from the catch block, in the individual threads. This will check for all the different healths, and in the case where there is any issue it will pause the threads, and log appropriately. There will be other processes which will read the logs by the process, and alert support to take appropriate actions.
Below is the general structure of the java process.
import java.util.concurrent.ExecutorService;
import java.util.concurrent.Executors;
public class Schedular {
private static int numOfTasks = 10 ;
public static void main(String[] args) {
ExecutorService service = Executors.newFixedThreadPool(5);
while(true){
for(int i=0;i<numOfTasks;i++){
service.execute(new Workers());
}
}
}
}
class Workers implements Runnable{
#Override
public void run() {
/*
* This can throw different exceptions , eg:
*/
try{
}catch(Exception e){
e.printStackTrace();
HealthChecker.checkHealth();
}
}
}
class HealthChecker{
public static void checkHealth() {
//Check health and then , log and pause all the threads
}
}
I am not able to figure out a way to pause all the threads. If there is a db exception I want all the threads to pause. I am requesting some suggestions.
You need a way to block the threads until some event occurs that allows the threads to continue. I see some major issues with the code:
1) The while(true) in your main thread might lead to a StackOverflowError. With each iteration of the while loop, you will add 10 more threads to the executor, and this will just continue unbounded.
2) There is no loop in your run() so that even if an exception is caught and we wait for the HealthCheck, the run() method would still exit. While a loop is not needed in your run() if you can constantly execute new Threads from your main thread to take the place of the terminated one, but that logic is not presently there in the main loop.
But setting those concerns aside here is one way to block worker threads until some event (presumably a HealthCheck all clear) occurs.
import java.util.concurrent.ExecutorService;
import java.util.concurrent.Executors;
public class Schedular {
private static int numOfTasks = 10 ;
public static void main(String[] args) {
ExecutorService service = Executors.newFixedThreadPool(5);
HealtchChecker hChecker = new HealthChecker();
for(int i=0;i<numOfTasks;i++){
service.execute(new Workers(hChecker));
}
}
}
class Workers implements Runnable{
private HealtchChecker hChecker;
public Workers(HealtchChecker hChecker){
this.hChecker = hChecker;
}
#Override
public void run() {
/*
* This can throw different exceptions , eg:
*/
while(true) {
try{
}catch (InterruptedException ie) {
throw ie;
}catch(Exception e){
e.printStackTrace();
HealthChecker.checkHealth();
}
}
}
}
class HealthChecker implements Runnable {
private final Semaphore semaphore = new Semaphore(1, true);
public void checkHealth() {
try {
semaphore.acquire();
} finally {
semaphore.release();
}
}
#Override
public void run(){
//code to check for errors that cause threads to pause.
if (inErrorState) {
semaphore.acquire();
} else {
semaphore.release();
}
}
}
A few things worth mentioning.
1) The main thread only creates 10 threads, versus an unbounded amount. You can adjust this as needed.
2) The Worker thread is long lived, meaning it will continue running even if it encounters Exceptions, except for an InterruptException.
3) HealthCheck is no longer a static object. it is instead a shared object.
4) HealthCheck is a runnable that can be executed in its own thread for monitoring for errors. I did not add the code to execute this thread.
5) HealCheck uses a Semaphore to cause the threads to block until the error state is cleared. I looked for other objects that can do this, like CountDownLatch or CyclicBarrier or Phaser, but this one came closest to giving us what we need to block all the threads from one point (the run() method).
Its not perfect but I think it gets you a little bit closer to what you want.
You're venturing pretty far afield from best practices, but you didn't ask about best practices for monitoring the health of threads - so I won't answer that question. Instead, I'll just answer the question you asked: how can I pause a set of threads managed by an ExecutorService?
Assuming that your Workers.run() will eventually end without intervention (in other words, it's not in an infinite loop - intentional or otherwise), the right thing to do is to call service.shutdown() (where service is your instance of ExecutorService). To do this, you can pass service in to HealthCheck.healthCheck() as a new parameter. Calling shutdown() will allow the currently-running threads to complete, then stop the executor.
If Workers.run() will not naturally complete, best practice says that you need to change your code such that it will. There is a Thread.stop() method you can call to halt the thread and a Thread.suspend() method you can call to suspend the thread. Both of these are double-bad ideas for you to use for two reasons:
They are Deprecated and will leave the Threads in a super-unhealthy state. You will have very difficult problems in the future if you use them.
You are using ExecutorService. That means you are delegating thread management to that class. If you go messing with the state of the Threads underneath ExecutorService, it can't manage the thread pool for you and, again, you will have very difficult problems in the future.

How to be notified when thread goes down?

In java, I have ExecutorService that runs with while true, and Throwable catch clouse. I find out that from time to time the thread goes down. That means the system stop function.
So my question is, first of all, how can I catch the "thread killed" event (in order to send me email on such case)?
Also, how can this thread goes down?
the code is:
ExecutorService changesTrackerThread = Executors.newSingleThreadExecutor();
changesTrackerThread.submit(queueUpdater());
private Runnable queueUpdater() {
return new Runnable() {
#Override
public void run() {
while (true)
{
try
{
// do some code, then sleep
Thread.sleep(2000L);
} catch (Throwable t)
{
_log.error("something bad happened, but the loop should keep running", t);
}
}
}
};
Well first of all, why are you using a while loop here!?
You should use a scheduled executor:
ExecutorService changesTrackerThread = Executors.newSingleThreadScheduledExecutor()();
changesTrackerThread.scheduleAtFixedRate(new queueUpdater(), 0, 2, TimeUnit.SECONDS);
private Runnable queueUpdater() {
return new Runnable() {
#Override
public void run() {
try
{
// do some code
} catch (Throwable t)
{
_log.error("something bad happened", t);
}
}
};
I do not know why your thread dies, show us the full code.
But this way even if the thread dies the Excecutor will rerun it after the given period(2 seconds in this example.
As others have noted, you could replace your while (true) and sleep() loop with a ScheduledExecutorService. Scheduling a repeating task on such a service will return a ScheduledFuture which you can use to check the status of this task or to cancel it if you have a need for that. This will enable you to remove the try/catch block from the code.
Start the service like this:
ScheduledExecutorService svc = Executors.newScheduledThreadPool(1);
I would use newScheduledThreadPool() instead of newSingleThreadScheduledExecutor() since the former will restart threads if necessary.
Then, schedule the work like this:
void doSomeCode() {
// do some code
}
ScheduledFuture<?> sf = svc.scheduleAtFixedRate(this::doSomeCode, 0L, 2L, TimeUnit.SECONDS);
(Or if you wish you can inline doSomeCode() as a lambda or an anonymous inner class.)
Now what happens if the task fails with an exception? The ScheduledFuture object returned allows you to check status in a variety of ways. If you have a thread that you can dedicate to waiting for failures, you can have it call sf.get() which will throw an ExecutionException that wraps the exception that caused the task to fail. Otherwise, it blocks indefinitely. ScheduledFuture.get() is a bit weird in that unlike an ordinary Future.get() call, it never returns a value; it always throws an exception.
When/if the task fails, the caller of sf.get() can log the exception and resubmit the task, or whatever. If you don't want to block a thread indefinitely, you can poll for failure using sf.isDone() or sf.get(0L, TimeUnit.SECONDS). Note that both overloads of sf.get() communicate all of their return information via the type of a thrown exception, which may make them somewhat inconvenient to use.
You could put exception handling within the task itself, catching Throwable and continuing no matter what, and this will probably work. It does bake the logging/restart/resubmission policy into the task itself, which may be unpleasant. Using ScheduledFuture lets you separate these policies from the actual work performed by the task.

How can I tell that threads in ThreadPoolExecutor are done?

I am writing code where I need to make sure that no threads are currently running in a thread pool before I commit results (to avoid losing data I should have put in the commit). For that, I'm using:
while (_executor.getActiveCount() > 0)
{
try
{
Thread.sleep(10); // milliseconds
}
catch (InterruptedException e)
{
// OK do nothing
}
}
But a colleague pointed out in review that the doc for getActiveCount states:
Returns the approximate number of threads that are actively
executing tasks.
So, is there a risk I would get out of the while loop while there are still active threads in the pool? If so, what would be the correct way to wait for all my worker threads to be done?
Edit: To give some more context: this is an online system, where the task that contains the executor service is left running indefinitely. Work comes in via a messaging system, is put on a thread in the executor, which doesn't need any synchronization, and works come out into another queue for the messaging system. I don't want to kill the executor to wait for completion of tasks.
You might want to consider using a CompletionService (http://docs.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/api/java/util/concurrent/CompletionService.html).
A CompletionService wraps an ExecutorService and returns a Future when tasks are submitted. By maintaining a list of these Futures, you can see if the jobs that you're waiting on have completed. It also has the additional advantage that you can have others use the same ExecutorService since you have some means of accounting,
_executor.awaitTermination(); should do the job. Now, it won't actually wait for the threads to shutdown, but rather it would wait for all available tasks to terminate.
You could also provide keepAliveTime to a thread pool constructor to instantly terminate idle threads:
ExecutorService executor = new ThreadPoolExecutor(0, 10, 0L /* keepAlive */,
TimeUnit.MILLISECONDS, new LinkedBlockingQueue<Runnable>());
To notify a thread that it should clean up and terminate, use the interrupt method.
t.interrupt();
and it is good to print or have log of your errors from catch block.
When tasks are submitted to the executor, they return Futures, which indicate when they complete. That is the preferred mechanism to use.
You can use JDK ExecutorService shutdown/awaitTermination.
Use case: need to cleanup thread-locals in pool threads upon their completion and this cleanup can take long (e.g. connection close). Only after that the main thread can continue.
A worker thread can register itself in some collection. For that override start() and run() and pass a custom thread factory to ThreadPoolExecutor:
class MyThreadFactory implements ThreadFactory {
#Override
public Thread newThread(final Runnable r) {
return new MyThread(r);
}
...
class Some {
void waitAllThreads() {
Thread worker;
while ((worker = workerThreads.poll()) != null) {
worker.join();
}
}
...
class MyThread extends Thread {
#Override
public synchronized void start() {
if (getState() == State.NEW) {
some.workerThreads.offer(this);
}
super.start();
}
#Override
public void run() {
try {
super.run();
} finally {
some.workerThreads.remove(this);
}
}
...

Java ExecutorService pause/resume a specific thread

Is there a way to use ExecutorService to pause/resume a specific thread?
private static ExecutorService threadpool = Executors.newFixedThreadPool(5);
Imagine that I want to stop the thread which as the id=0 (assuming that to each one is assigned an incremental id until the size of the threadpool is reached).
After a while, by pressing a button let's say, I want to resume that specific thread and leave all the other threads with their current status, which can be paused or resumed.
I have found on Java documentation a uncompleted version of PausableThreadPoolExecutor. But it doesn't suit what I need because it resume all the threads in the pool.
If there's no way to do it with the default implementation of the ExecutorService can anyone point me to a Java implementation for this problem?
You are on the wrong track. The thread pool owns the threads and by sharing them with your code could mess things up.
You should focus on making your tasks (passed to the threads cancellable/interruptable) and not interact with the threads owned by the pool directly.
Additionally you would not know what job is being executed at the time you try to interrupt the thread, so I can't see why you would be interested in doing this
Update:
The proper way to cancel your task submitted in the thread pool is via the Future for the task returned by the executor.
1)This way you know for sure that the task you actually aim at is attempted to be cancelled
2)If your tasks are already designed to be cancellable then your are half way there
3) Do not use a flag to indicate cancellation but use Thread.currentThread().interrupt() instead
Update:
public class InterruptableTasks {
private static class InterruptableTask implements Runnable{
Object o = new Object();
private volatile boolean suspended = false;
public void suspend(){
suspended = true;
}
public void resume(){
suspended = false;
synchronized (o) {
o.notifyAll();
}
}
#Override
public void run() {
while(!Thread.currentThread().isInterrupted()){
if(!suspended){
//Do work here
}
else{
//Has been suspended
try {
while(suspended){
synchronized(o){
o.wait();
}
}
}
catch (InterruptedException e) {
}
}
}
System.out.println("Cancelled");
}
}
/**
* #param args
* #throws InterruptedException
*/
public static void main(String[] args) throws InterruptedException {
ExecutorService threadPool = Executors.newCachedThreadPool();
InterruptableTask task = new InterruptableTask();
Map<Integer, InterruptableTask> tasks = new HashMap<Integer, InterruptableTask>();
tasks.put(1, task);
//add the tasks and their ids
Future<?> f = threadPool.submit(task);
TimeUnit.SECONDS.sleep(2);
InterruptableTask theTask = tasks.get(1);//get task by id
theTask.suspend();
TimeUnit.SECONDS.sleep(2);
theTask.resume();
TimeUnit.SECONDS.sleep(4);
threadPool.shutdownNow();
}
Suggestion: Similarly to/instead of the flags you're using, create a semaphore with 1 permit (new Semaphore(1)) for each task you need to pause/unpause. At the beginning of the task's working cycle put a code like this:
semaphore.acquire();
semaphore.release();
This causes the task to acquire a semaphore permit and immediately release it. Now if you want to pause the thread (a button is pressed, for example), call semaphore.acquire() from another thread. Since the semaphore has 0 permits now, your working thread will pause at the beginning of the next cycle and wait until you call semaphore.release() from the other thread.
(The acquire() method throws InterruptedException, if your working thread gets interrupted while waiting. There is another method acquireUninterruptibly(), which also tries to acquire a permit, but doesn't get interrupted.)
One scenario could be, one wants to simulate a number of devices. Devices have functions. Altogether this collection of devices runs concurrently. And now if a thread represents a device ( or one thread for one function of a device ), one might want to control the life cycle of the device like start(), shutdown(), resume()

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