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How to wait for completion of multiple tasks in Java?

What is the proper way to implement concurrency in Java applications? I know about Threads and stuff, of course, I have been programming for Java for 10 years now, but haven't had too much experience with concurrency.
For example, I have to asynchronously load a few resources, and only after all have been loaded, can I proceed and do more work. Needless to say, there is no order how they will finish. How do I do this?
In JavaScript, I like using the jQuery.deferred infrastructure, to say
$.when(deferred1,deferred2,deferred3...)
.done(
function(){//here everything is done
...
});
But what do I do in Java?

You can achieve it in multiple ways.
1.ExecutorService invokeAll() API
Executes the given tasks, returning a list of Futures holding their status and results when all complete.
2.CountDownLatch
A synchronization aid that allows one or more threads to wait until a set of operations being performed in other threads completes.
A CountDownLatch is initialized with a given count. The await methods block until the current count reaches zero due to invocations of the countDown() method, after which all waiting threads are released and any subsequent invocations of await return immediately. This is a one-shot phenomenon -- the count cannot be reset. If you need a version that resets the count, consider using a CyclicBarrier.
3.ForkJoinPool or newWorkStealingPool() in Executors is other way
Have a look at related SE questions:
How to wait for a thread that spawns it's own thread?
Executors: How to synchronously wait until all tasks have finished if tasks are created recursively?

I would use parallel stream.
Stream.of(runnable1, runnable2, runnable3).parallel().forEach(r -> r.run());
// do something after all these are done.
If you need this to be asynchronous, then you might use a pool or Thread.
I have to asynchronously load a few resources,
You could collect these resources like this.
List<String> urls = ....
Map<String, String> map = urls.parallelStream()
.collect(Collectors.toMap(u -> u, u -> download(u)));
This will give you a mapping of all the resources once they have been downloaded concurrently. The concurrency will be the number of CPUs you have by default.

If I'm not using parallel Streams or Spring MVC's TaskExecutor, I usually use CountDownLatch. Instantiate with # of tasks, reduce once for each thread that completes its task. CountDownLatch.await() waits until the latch is at 0. Really useful.
Read more here: JavaDocs

Personally, I would do something like this if I am using Java 8 or later.
// Retrieving instagram followers
CompletableFuture<Integer> instagramFollowers = CompletableFuture.supplyAsync(() -> {
// getInstaFollowers(userId);
return 0; // default value
});
// Retrieving twitter followers
CompletableFuture<Integer> twitterFollowers = CompletableFuture.supplyAsync(() -> {
// getTwFollowers(userId);
return 0; // default value
});
System.out.println("Calculating Total Followers...");
CompletableFuture<Integer> totalFollowers = instagramFollowers
.thenCombine(twitterFollowers, (instaFollowers, twFollowers) -> {
return instaFollowers + twFollowers; // can be replaced with method reference
});
System.out.println("Total followers: " + totalFollowers.get()); // blocks until both the above tasks are complete
I used supplyAsync() as I am returning some value (no. of followers in this case) from the tasks otherwise I could have used runAsync(). Both of these run the task in a separate thread.
Finally, I used thenCombine() to join both the CompletableFuture. You could also use thenCompose() to join two CompletableFuture if one depends on the other. But in this case, as both the tasks can be executed in parallel, I used thenCombine().
The methods getInstaFollowers(userId) and getTwFollowers(userId) are simple HTTP calls or something.

You can use a ThreadPool and Executors to do this.
https://docs.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/essential/concurrency/pools.html

This is an example I use Threads. Its a static executerService with a fixed size of 50 threads.
public class ThreadPoolExecutor {
private static final ExecutorService executorService = Executors.newFixedThreadPool(50,
new ThreadFactoryBuilder().setNameFormat("thread-%d").build());
private static ThreadPoolExecutor instance = new ThreadPoolExecutor();
public static ThreadPoolExecutor getInstance() {
return instance;
}
public <T> Future<? extends T> queueJob(Callable<? extends T> task) {
return executorService.submit(task);
}
public void shutdown() {
executorService.shutdown();
}
}
The business logic for the executer is used like this: (You can use Callable or Runnable. Callable can return something, Runnable not)
public class MultipleExecutor implements Callable<ReturnType> {//your code}
And the call of the executer:
ThreadPoolExecutor threadPoolExecutor = ThreadPoolExecutor.getInstance();
List<Future<? extends ReturnType>> results = new LinkedList<>();
for (Type Type : typeList) {
Future<? extends ReturnType> future = threadPoolExecutor.queueJob(
new MultipleExecutor(needed parameters));
results.add(future);
}
for (Future<? extends ReturnType> result : results) {
try {
if (result.get() != null) {
result.get(); // here you get the return of one thread
}
} catch (InterruptedException | ExecutionException e) {
logger.error(e, e);
}
}

The same behaviour as with $.Deferred in jQuery you can archive in Java 8 with a class called CompletableFuture. This class provides the API for working with Promises. In order to create async code you can use one of it's static creational methods like #runAsync, #supplyAsync. Then applying some computation of results with #thenApply.

I usually opt for an async notify-start, notify-progress, notify-end approach:
class Task extends Thread {
private ThreadLauncher parent;
public Task(ThreadLauncher parent) {
super();
this.parent = parent;
}
public void run() {
doStuff();
parent.notifyEnd(this);
}
public /*abstract*/ void doStuff() {
// ...
}
}
class ThreadLauncher {
public void stuff() {
for (int i=0; i<10; i++)
new Task(this).start();
}
public void notifyEnd(Task who) {
// ...
}
}

How to properly extend FutureTask

While coding a computation-heavy application, I tried to make use of the SwingWorker class to spread the load to multiple CPU cores. However, behaviour of this class proved to be somewhat strange: only one core seemed to be utilized.
When searching the internet, I found an excellent answer on this web (see Swingworker instances not running concurrently, answer by user268396) which -- in addition to the cause of the problem -- also mentions a possible solution:
What you can do to get around this is use an ExecutorService and post
FutureTasks on it. These will provide 99% of the SwingWorker API
(SwingWorker is a FutureTask derivative), all you have to do is set up
your Executor properly.
Being a Java beginner, I am not entirely sure how to do this properly. Not only that I need to pass some initial data to the FutureTask objects, I also need to get the results back similarly as with SwingWorker. Any example code would therefore be much appreciated.
nvx
==================== EDIT ====================
After implementing the simple yet elegant solution mentioned in FutureTask that implements Callable, another issue has come up. If I use an ExecutorService to create individual threads, how do I execute specific code after a thread finished running?
I tried to override done() of the FutureTask object (see the code below) but I guess that the "show results" bit (or any GUI related stuff for that matter) should be done in the application's event dispatch thread (EDT). Therefore: how do I submit the runnable to the EDT?
package multicoretest;
import java.util.concurrent.*;
public class MultiCoreTest {
static int coresToBeUsed = 4;
static Future[] futures = new Future[coresToBeUsed];
public static void main(String[] args) {
ExecutorService execSvc = Executors.newFixedThreadPool(coresToBeUsed);
for (int i = 0; i < coresToBeUsed; i++) {
futures[i] = execSvc.submit(new Worker(i));
}
execSvc.shutdown();
// I do not want to block the thread (so that users can
// e.g. terminate the computation via GUI)
//execSvc.awaitTermination(Long.MAX_VALUE, TimeUnit.DAYS);
}
static class Worker implements Callable<String> {
private final FutureTask<String> futureTask;
private final int workerIdx;
public Worker(int idx) {
workerIdx = idx;
futureTask = new FutureTask<String>(this) {
#Override
protected void done() {
Runnable r = new Runnable() {
#Override
public void run() {
showResults(workerIdx);
}
};
r.run(); // Does not work => how do I submit the runnable
// to the application's event dispatch thread?
}
};
}
#Override
public String call() throws Exception {
String s = "";
for (int i = 0; i < 2e4; i++) {
s += String.valueOf(i) + " ";
}
return s;
}
final String get() throws InterruptedException, ExecutionException {
return futureTask.get();
}
void showResults(int idx) {
try {
System.out.println("Worker " + idx + ":" +
(String)futures[idx].get());
} catch (Exception e) {
System.err.println(e.getMessage());
}
}
}
}

A couple of points:
you rarely need to use FutureTask directly, just implement Callable or Runnable and submit the instance to an Executor
in order to update the gui when you are done, as the last step of your run()/call() method, use SwingUtilities.invokeLater() with the code to update the ui.
Note, you can still use SwingWorker, just, instead of calling execute(), submit the SwingWorker to your Executor instead.
if you need to process all results together when all threads are done before updating the gui, then i would suggest:
have each worker stash it's results into a thread-safe, shared list
the last worker to add results to the list should then do the post-processing work
the worker which did the post-processing work should then invoke SwingUtilities.invokeLater() with the final results

I tried to make use of the SwingWorker class to spread the load to
multiple CPU cores. However, behaviour of this class proved to be
somewhat strange: only one core seemed to be utilized.
no idea without posting an SSCCE, short, runnable, compilable,
SSCCE could be based on
SwingWorker is designated creating Workers Thread for Swing GUI, more in this thread

How to run a Listener in a different thread or do its calculation in a different thread

I'm trying to build a cache with Google Guava and want to do some calculation on the expired objects. A removalListener notifies me, if some object was removed.
How can I run the removalListener in a different thread than the main application or pass the expired object (in the simple example below, that would be the Integer 3) to a different thread that handles the calculation?
Edit: As the calculation is rather short, but happens often, I would rather not create a new thread each time (would be thousands of threads), but have one (or maybe two) who calculate all objects.
Simple example:
Cache<String, Integer> cache = CacheBuilder.newBuilder().maximumSize(100)
.expireAfterAccess(100, TimeUnit.NANOSECONDS)
.removalListener(new RemovalListener<String, Integer>() {
public void onRemoval(final RemovalNotification notification) {
if (notification.getCause() == RemovalCause.EXPIRED) {
System.out.println("removed " + notification.getValue());
// do calculation=> this should be in another thread
}
}
})
.build();
cache.put("test1", 3);
cache.cleanUp();

To run your listener in an executor, wrap it with RemovalListeners.asynchronous.
.removalListener(asynchronous(new RemovalListener() { ... }, executor))

Create an ExecutorService using one of the Executors factory methods, and submit a new Runnable to this executor each time you need to:
private ExecutorService executor = Executors.newSingleThreadExecutor();
...
public void onRemoval(final RemovalNotification notification) {
if (notification.getCause() == RemovalCause.EXPIRED) {
System.out.println("removed " + notification.getValue());
submitCalculation(notification.getValue());
}
}
private void submitCalculation(final Integer value) {
Runnable task = new Runnable() {
#Override
public void run() {
// call your calculation here
}
};
executor.submit(task);
}

You can create a new class, and implement the java.utils.Runnable interface like so;
public class MyWorkerThread implements Runnable {
public MyWorkerThread(/*params*/) {
//set your instance variables here
//then start the thread
(new Thread(this)).start();
}
public void run() {
//do useful things
}
}
When you create a new MyWorkerThread by calling the constructor, execution is returned to the calling code as soon as the constructor is finished, and a separate thread is started that runs the code inside the run() method.
If you might want to create MyWorkerThread objects without immediately starting them off, you can remove the Thread.start() code from the constructor, and call the thread manually from the instance later like so;
MyWorkerThread t = new MyWorkerThread();
//later
(new Thread(t)).start();
Or if you want to keep a reference to the Thread object so you can do groovy things like interrupt and join, do it like so;
Thread myThread = new Thread(t);
myThread.start();
//some other time
myThread.interrupt();

you can simply create intermediate queue for expired entities (expiration listener will just add expired object to this queue) - say some sort of blocking in-memory queue - ArrayBlockingQueue, LinkedBlockingDeque.
Then you can setup thread-pool and handlers(with configurable size) that will consume objects using poll() method.
For high-performance queue - i can advice more advanced non-blocking queue implementation if needed. also you can read more about high-performance non-blocking queues here Add the first element to a ConcurrentLinkedQueue atomically

Use an executor service to dispatch your task to a different thread.
ExecutorService have an internal blocking queue that is used for safe publishing of references between the producer and the consumer threads. The factory class Executors can be used to create different ExecutorService with different thread management strategies.
private ExecutorService cleanupExecutor = Executors.newFixedThreadPool(CLEANUP_THREADPOOL_SIZE);
...
public void onRemoval(final RemovalNotification notification) {
if (notification.getCause() == RemovalCause.EXPIRED) {
System.out.println("removed " + notification.getValue());
doAsyncCalculation(notification.getValue());
}
}
private void doAsyncCalculation(final Object obj) {
cleanupExecutor.submit(new Runnable() {
public void run() {
expensiveOperation(obj);
}
}
}
In doAsyncCalculation you are creating new tasks to be run but not new threads. The executor service takes care of dispatching the task to the threads in the executorService's associated thread pool.

Return values from Java Threads

I have a Java Thread like the following:
public class MyThread extends Thread {
MyService service;
String id;
public MyThread(String id) {
this.id = node;
}
public void run() {
User user = service.getUser(id)
}
}
I have about 300 ids, and every couple of seconds - I fire up threads to make a call for each of the id. Eg.
for(String id: ids) {
MyThread thread = new MyThread(id);
thread.start();
}
Now, I would like to collect the results from each threads, and do a batch insert to the database, instead of making 300 database inserts every 2 seconds.
Any idea how I can accomplish this?

The canonical approach is to use a Callable and an ExecutorService. submitting a Callable to an ExecutorService returns a (typesafe) Future from which you can get the result.
class TaskAsCallable implements Callable<Result> {
#Override
public Result call() {
return a new Result() // this is where the work is done.
}
}
ExecutorService executor = Executors.newFixedThreadPool(300);
Future<Result> task = executor.submit(new TaskAsCallable());
Result result = task.get(); // this blocks until result is ready
In your case, you probably want to use invokeAll which returns a List of Futures, or create that list yourself as you add tasks to the executor. To collect results, simply call get on each one.

If you want to collect all of the results before doing the database update, you can use the invokeAll method. This takes care of the bookkeeping that would be required if you submit tasks one at a time, like daveb suggests.
private static final ExecutorService workers = Executors.newCachedThreadPool();
...
Collection<Callable<User>> tasks = new ArrayList<Callable<User>>();
for (final String id : ids) {
tasks.add(new Callable<User>()
{
public User call()
throws Exception
{
return svc.getUser(id);
}
});
}
/* invokeAll blocks until all service requests complete,
* or a max of 10 seconds. */
List<Future<User>> results = workers.invokeAll(tasks, 10, TimeUnit.SECONDS);
for (Future<User> f : results) {
User user = f.get();
/* Add user to batch update. */
...
}
/* Commit batch. */
...

Store your result in your object. When it completes, have it drop itself into a synchronized collection (a synchronized queue comes to mind).
When you wish to collect your results to submit, grab everything from the queue and read your results from the objects. You might even have each object know how to "post" it's own results to the database, this way different classes can be submitted and all handled with the exact same tiny, elegant loop.
There are lots of tools in the JDK to help with this, but it is really easy once you start thinking of your thread as a true object and not just a bunch of crap around a "run" method. Once you start thinking of objects this way programming becomes much simpler and more satisfying.

In Java8 there is better way for doing this using CompletableFuture. Say we have class that get's id from the database, for simplicity we can just return a number as below,
static class GenerateNumber implements Supplier<Integer>{
private final int number;
GenerateNumber(int number){
this.number = number;
}
#Override
public Integer get() {
try {
TimeUnit.SECONDS.sleep(1);
}catch (InterruptedException e){
e.printStackTrace();
}
return this.number;
}
}
Now we can add the result to a concurrent collection once the results of every future is ready.
Collection<Integer> results = new ConcurrentLinkedQueue<>();
int tasks = 10;
CompletableFuture<?>[] allFutures = new CompletableFuture[tasks];
for (int i = 0; i < tasks; i++) {
int temp = i;
CompletableFuture<Integer> future = CompletableFuture.supplyAsync(()-> new GenerateNumber(temp).get(), executor);
allFutures[i] = future.thenAccept(results::add);
}
Now we can add a callback when all the futures are ready,
CompletableFuture.allOf(allFutures).thenAccept(c->{
System.out.println(results); // do something with result
});

You need to store the result in a something like singleton. This has to be properly synchronized.
This not the best advice as it is not good idea to handle raw Threads.

You could create a queue or list which you pass to the threads you create, the threads add their result to the list which gets emptied by a consumer which performs the batch insert.

The simplest approach is to pass an object to each thread (one object per thread) that will contain the result later. The main thread should keep a reference to each result object. When all threads are joined, you can use the results.

public class TopClass {
List<User> users = new ArrayList<User>();
void addUser(User user) {
synchronized(users) {
users.add(user);
}
}
void store() throws SQLException {
//storing code goes here
}
class MyThread extends Thread {
MyService service;
String id;
public MyThread(String id) {
this.id = node;
}
public void run() {
User user = service.getUser(id)
addUser(user);
}
}
}

You could make a class which extends Observable. Then your thread can call a method in the Observable class which would notify any classes that registered in that observer by calling Observable.notifyObservers(Object).
The observing class would implement Observer, and register itself with the Observable. You would then implement an update(Observable, Object) method that gets called when Observerable.notifyObservers(Object) is called.

Observer Design Pattern

In the Observer Design Pattern, the subject notifies all observers by calling the update() operation of each observer. One way of doing this is
void notify() {
for (observer: observers) {
observer.update(this);
}
}
But the problem here is each observer is updated in a sequence and update operation for an observer might not be called till all the observers before it is updated. If there is an observer that has an infinite loop for update then all the observer after it will never be notified.
Question:
Is there a way to get around this problem?
If so what would be a good example?

The problem is the infinite loop, not the one-after-the-other notifications.
If you wanted things to update concurrently, you'd need to fire things off on different threads - in which case, each listener would need to synchronize with the others in order to access the object that fired the event.
Complaining about one infinite loop stopping other updates from happening is like complaining that taking a lock and then going into an infinite loop stops others from accessing the locked object - the problem is the infinite loop, not the lock manager.

Classic design patterns do not involve parallelism and threading. You'd have to spawn N threads for the N observers. Be careful though since their interaction to this will have to be done in a thread safe manner.

You could make use of the java.utils.concurrent.Executors.newFixedThreadPool(int nThreads) method, then call the invokeAll method (could make use of the one with the timout too to avoid the infinite loop).
You would change your loop to add a class that is Callable that takes the "observer" and the "this" and then call the update method in the "call" method.
Take a look at this package for more info.
This is a quick and dirty implementation of what I was talking about:
import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.List;
import java.util.concurrent.Callable;
import java.util.concurrent.CopyOnWriteArrayList;
import java.util.concurrent.ExecutorService;
import java.util.concurrent.Executors;
import java.util.concurrent.TimeUnit;
public class Main
{
private Main()
{
}
public static void main(final String[] argv)
{
final Watched watched;
final List<Watcher> watchers;
watched = new Watched();
watchers = makeWatchers(watched, 10);
watched.notifyWatchers(9);
}
private static List<Watcher> makeWatchers(final Watched watched,
final int count)
{
final List<Watcher> watchers;
watchers = new ArrayList<Watcher>(count);
for(int i = 0; i < count; i++)
{
final Watcher watcher;
watcher = new Watcher(i + 1);
watched.addWatcher(watcher);
watchers.add(watcher);
}
return (watchers);
}
}
class Watched
{
private final List<Watcher> watchers;
{
watchers = new ArrayList<Watcher>();
}
public void addWatcher(final Watcher watcher)
{
watchers.add(watcher);
}
public void notifyWatchers(final int seconds)
{
final List<Watcher> currentWatchers;
final List<WatcherCallable> callables;
final ExecutorService service;
currentWatchers = new CopyOnWriteArrayList<Watcher>(watchers);
callables = new ArrayList<WatcherCallable>(currentWatchers.size());
for(final Watcher watcher : currentWatchers)
{
final WatcherCallable callable;
callable = new WatcherCallable(watcher);
callables.add(callable);
}
service = Executors.newFixedThreadPool(callables.size());
try
{
final boolean value;
service.invokeAll(callables, seconds, TimeUnit.SECONDS);
value = service.awaitTermination(seconds, TimeUnit.SECONDS);
System.out.println("done: " + value);
}
catch (InterruptedException ex)
{
}
service.shutdown();
System.out.println("leaving");
}
private class WatcherCallable
implements Callable<Void>
{
private final Watcher watcher;
WatcherCallable(final Watcher w)
{
watcher = w;
}
public Void call()
{
watcher.update(Watched.this);
return (null);
}
}
}
class Watcher
{
private final int value;
Watcher(final int val)
{
value = val;
}
public void update(final Watched watched)
{
try
{
Thread.sleep(value * 1000);
}
catch (InterruptedException ex)
{
System.out.println(value + "interupted");
}
System.out.println(value + " done");
}
}

I'd be more concerned about the observer throwing an exception than about it looping indefinitely. Your current implementation would not notify the remaining observers in such an event.

1. Is there a way to get around this problem?
Yes, make sure the observer work fine and return in a timely fashion.
2. Can someone please explain it with an example.
Sure:
class ObserverImpl implements Observer {
public void update( Object state ) {
// remove the infinite loop.
//while( true ) {
// doSomething();
//}
// and use some kind of control:
int iterationControl = 100;
int currentIteration = 0;
while( curentIteration++ < iterationControl ) {
doSomething();
}
}
private void doSomething(){}
}
This one prevent from a given loop to go infinite ( if it makes sense, it should run at most 100 times )
Other mechanism is to start the new task in a second thread, but if it goes into an infinite loop it will eventually consume all the system memory:
class ObserverImpl implements Observer {
public void update( Object state ) {
new Thread( new Runnable(){
public void run() {
while( true ) {
doSomething();
}
}
}).start();
}
private void doSomething(){}
}
That will make the that observer instance to return immediately, but it will be only an illusion, what you have to actually do is to avoid the infinite loop.
Finally, if your observers work fine but you just want to notify them all sooner, you can take a look at this related question: Invoke a code after all mouse event listeners are executed..

All observers get notified, that's all the guarantee you get.
If you want to implement some fancy ordering, you can do that:
Connect just a single Observer;
have this primary Observer notify his friends in an order you define in code or by some other means.
That takes you away from the classic Observer pattern in that your listeners are hardwired, but if it's what you need... do it!

If you have an observer with an "infinite loop", it's no longer really the observer pattern.
You could fire a different thread to each observer, but the observers MUST be prohibited from changing the state on the observed object.
The simplest (and stupidest) method would simply be to take your example and make it threaded.
void notify() {
for (observer: observers) {
new Thread(){
public static void run() {
observer.update(this);
}
}.start();
}
}
(this was coded by hand, is untested and probably has a bug or five--and it's a bad idea anyway)
The problem with this is that it will make your machine chunky since it has to allocate a bunch of new threads at once.
So to fix the problem with all the treads starting at once, use a ThreadPoolExecutor because it will A) recycle threads, and B) can limit the max number of threads running.
This is not deterministic in your case of "Loop forever" since each forever loop will permanently eat one of the threads from your pool.
Your best bet is to not allow them to loop forever, or if they must, have them create their own thread.
If you have to support classes that can't change, but you can identify which will run quickly and which will run "Forever" (in computer terms I think that equates to more than a second or two) then you COULD use a loop like this:
void notify() {
for (observer: observers) {
if(willUpdateQuickly(observer))
observer.update(this);
else
new Thread(){
public static void run() {
observer.update(this);
}
}.start();
}
}
Hey, if it actually "Loops forever", will it consume a thread for every notification? It really sounds like you may have to spend some more time on your design.