Does wait(some time) must always be in synchronized method? - java

I have multithreaded application. Sometime in some thread happens exception for external network reason. I think use e.g. wait(60000) - 1 minute to re-connect.
Should I explicitly put in synchronized method e.g.:
public void synchronized reconnect(){
wait(60000);
................. }
or it possible:
public void reconnect(){
wait(60000);
................. }
Thanks.

As Eugene wrote, current thread must acquire lock on object. It is not necessary done by synchronized method. You also may acquire lock by explicit synchronizing:
public void reconnect() {
// some code
synchronized (this) {
wait(60000);
}
// some other code
}
It depends on that you need to achieve.

It has to be! You must acquire the lock of the Object before you can actually wait.
Cheers,Eugene.

Related

my own blocking queue for producer consumer [duplicate]

I am using multi-threading in java for my program.
I have run thread successfully but when I am using Thread.wait(), it is throwing java.lang.IllegalMonitorStateException.
How can I make a thread wait until it will be notified?
You need to be in a synchronized block in order for Object.wait() to work.
Also, I recommend looking at the concurrency packages instead of the old school threading packages. They are safer and way easier to work with.
EDIT
I assumed you meant Object.wait() as your exception is what happens when you try to gain access without holding the objects lock.
wait is defined in Object, and not it Thread. The monitor on Thread is a little unpredictable.
Although all Java objects have monitors, it is generally better to have a dedicated lock:
private final Object lock = new Object();
You can get slightly easier to read diagnostics, at a small memory cost (about 2K per process) by using a named class:
private static final class Lock { }
private final Object lock = new Lock();
In order to wait or notify/notifyAll an object, you need to be holding the lock with the synchronized statement. Also, you will need a while loop to check for the wakeup condition (find a good text on threading to explain why).
synchronized (lock) {
while (!isWakeupNeeded()) {
lock.wait();
}
}
To notify:
synchronized (lock) {
makeWakeupNeeded();
lock.notifyAll();
}
It is well worth getting to understand both Java language and java.util.concurrent.locks locks (and java.util.concurrent.atomic) when getting into multithreading. But use java.util.concurrent data structures whenever you can.
I know this thread is almost 2 years old but still need to close this since I also came to this Q/A session with same issue...
Please read this definition of illegalMonitorException again and again...
IllegalMonitorException is thrown to indicate that a thread has attempted to wait on an object's monitor or to notify other threads waiting on an object's monitor without owning the specified monitor.
This line again and again says, IllegalMonitorException comes when one of the 2 situation occurs....
1> wait on an object's monitor without owning the specified monitor.
2> notify other threads waiting on an object's monitor without owning the specified monitor.
Some might have got their answers... who all doesn't, then please check 2 statements....
synchronized (object)
object.wait()
If both object are same... then no illegalMonitorException can come.
Now again read the IllegalMonitorException definition and you wont forget it again...
Based on your comments it sounds like you are doing something like this:
Thread thread = new Thread(new Runnable(){
public void run() { // do stuff }});
thread.start();
...
thread.wait();
There are three problems.
As others have said, obj.wait() can only be called if the current thread holds the primitive lock / mutex for obj. If the current thread does not hold the lock, you get the exception you are seeing.
The thread.wait() call does not do what you seem to be expecting it to do. Specifically, thread.wait() does not cause the nominated thread to wait. Rather it causes the current thread to wait until some other thread calls thread.notify() or thread.notifyAll().
There is actually no safe way to force a Thread instance to pause if it doesn't want to. (The nearest that Java has to this is the deprecated Thread.suspend() method, but that method is inherently unsafe, as is explained in the Javadoc.)
If you want the newly started Thread to pause, the best way to do it is to create a CountdownLatch instance and have the thread call await() on the latch to pause itself. The main thread would then call countDown() on the latch to let the paused thread continue.
Orthogonal to the previous points, using a Thread object as a lock / mutex may cause problems. For example, the javadoc for Thread::join says:
This implementation uses a loop of this.wait calls conditioned on this.isAlive. As a thread terminates the this.notifyAll method is invoked. It is recommended that applications not use wait, notify, or notifyAll on Thread instances.
Since you haven't posted code, we're kind of working in the dark. What are the details of the exception?
Are you calling Thread.wait() from within the thread, or outside it?
I ask this because according to the javadoc for IllegalMonitorStateException, it is:
Thrown to indicate that a thread has attempted to wait on an object's monitor or to notify other threads waiting on an object's monitor without owning the specified monitor.
To clarify this answer, this call to wait on a thread also throws IllegalMonitorStateException, despite being called from within a synchronized block:
private static final class Lock { }
private final Object lock = new Lock();
#Test
public void testRun() {
ThreadWorker worker = new ThreadWorker();
System.out.println ("Starting worker");
worker.start();
System.out.println ("Worker started - telling it to wait");
try {
synchronized (lock) {
worker.wait();
}
} catch (InterruptedException e1) {
String msg = "InterruptedException: [" + e1.getLocalizedMessage() + "]";
System.out.println (msg);
e1.printStackTrace();
System.out.flush();
}
System.out.println ("Worker done waiting, we're now waiting for it by joining");
try {
worker.join();
} catch (InterruptedException ex) { }
}
In order to deal with the IllegalMonitorStateException, you must verify that all invocations of the wait, notify and notifyAll methods are taking place only when the calling thread owns the appropriate monitor. The most simple solution is to enclose these calls inside synchronized blocks. The synchronization object that shall be invoked in the synchronized statement is the one whose monitor must be acquired.
Here is the simple example for to understand the concept of monitor
public class SimpleMonitorState {
public static void main(String args[]) throws InterruptedException {
SimpleMonitorState t = new SimpleMonitorState();
SimpleRunnable m = new SimpleRunnable(t);
Thread t1 = new Thread(m);
t1.start();
t.call();
}
public void call() throws InterruptedException {
synchronized (this) {
wait();
System.out.println("Single by Threads ");
}
}
}
class SimpleRunnable implements Runnable {
SimpleMonitorState t;
SimpleRunnable(SimpleMonitorState t) {
this.t = t;
}
#Override
public void run() {
try {
// Sleep
Thread.sleep(10000);
synchronized (this.t) {
this.t.notify();
}
} catch (InterruptedException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
}
}
Thread.wait() call make sense inside a code that synchronizes on Thread.class object. I don't think it's what you meant.
You ask
How can I make a thread wait until it will be notified?
You can make only your current thread wait. Any other thread can be only gently asked to wait, if it agree.
If you want to wait for some condition, you need a lock object - Thread.class object is a very bad choice - it is a singleton AFAIK so synchronizing on it (except for Thread static methods) is dangerous.
Details for synchronization and waiting are already explained by Tom Hawtin.
java.lang.IllegalMonitorStateException means you are trying to wait on object on which you are not synchronized - it's illegal to do so.
Not sure if this will help somebody else out or not but this was the key part to fix my problem in user "Tom Hawtin - tacklin"'s answer above:
synchronized (lock) {
makeWakeupNeeded();
lock.notifyAll();
}
Just the fact that the "lock" is passed as an argument in synchronized() and it is also used in "lock".notifyAll();
Once I made it in those 2 places I got it working
I received a IllegalMonitorStateException while trying to wake up a thread in / from a different class / thread. In java 8 you can use the lock features of the new Concurrency API instead of synchronized functions.
I was already storing objects for asynchronous websocket transactions in a WeakHashMap. The solution in my case was to also store a lock object in a ConcurrentHashMap for synchronous replies. Note the condition.await (not .wait).
To handle the multi threading I used a Executors.newCachedThreadPool() to create a thread pool.
Those who are using Java 7.0 or below version can refer the code which I used here and it works.
public class WaitTest {
private final Lock lock = new ReentrantLock();
private final Condition condition = lock.newCondition();
public void waitHere(long waitTime) {
System.out.println("wait started...");
lock.lock();
try {
condition.await(waitTime, TimeUnit.SECONDS);
} catch (InterruptedException e) {
// TODO Auto-generated catch block
e.printStackTrace();
}
lock.unlock();
System.out.println("wait ends here...");
}
public static void main(String[] args) {
//Your Code
new WaitTest().waitHere(10);
//Your Code
}
}
For calling wait()/notify() on object, it needs to be inside synchronized block. So first you have to take lock on object then would be possible to call these function.
synchronized(obj)
{
obj.wait()
}
For detailed explanation:
https://dzone.com/articles/multithreading-java-and-interviewspart-2
wait(), notify() and notifyAll() methods should only be called in syncronized contexts.
For example, in a syncronized block:
syncronized (obj) {
obj.wait();
}
Or, in a syncronized method:
syncronized static void myMethod() {
wait();
}

Thread.sleep is blocking other thread also, working on other method, along with itself callled inside synchronized method

class Common
{
public synchronized void synchronizedMethod1()
{
System.out.println("synchronized Method1 called");
try
{
Thread.sleep(1000);
}
catch (InterruptedException e)
{
e.printStackTrace();
}
System.out.println("synchronized Method1 done");
}
public synchronized void synchronizedMethod2()
{
System.out.println("synchronized Method2 called");
try
{
Thread.sleep(1000);
}
catch (InterruptedException e)
{
e.printStackTrace();
}
System.out.println("synchronized Method2 done");
}
}
In the above class I have two synchronized methods which I am calling from run method of another class. Other class code is given below:
public class ThreadClass implements Runnable
{
private int id = 0;
private Common common;
public ThreadClass(int no, Common object)
{
common = object;
id = no;
}
public void run()
{
System.out.println("Running Thread " + Thread.currentThread().getName());
try
{
if (id == 11)
{
common.synchronizedMethod1();
}
else
{
common.synchronizedMethod2();
}
}
catch (Exception e)
{
e.printStackTrace();
}
}
public static void main(String[] args)
{
Common c = new Common();
ThreadClass tc = new ThreadClass(11, c);
ThreadClass tc1 = new ThreadClass(20, c);
Thread t1 = new Thread(tc, "Thread 1");
Thread t2 = new Thread(tc1, "Thread 2");
t1.start();
t2.start();
}
}
From main method I am starting two different threads. In run method I have given a condition to send both different threads to different synchronized methods. Output produced by the code is:
Running Thread Thread 2
Running Thread Thread 1
synchronized Method2 called
synchronized Method2 done
synchronized Method1 called
synchronized Method1 done
MY QUESTION FOR THE OUTPUT IS:
When thread 2 goes to synchronized Method2 it prints 3rd line of output and goes to sleep for 1 second. Now since thread 1 is not blocked by anything so it should execute and print 5th line of the output just after 3rd line of output and should go to sleep then but this is not happening instead when thread 2 goes to sleep it make's thread 1 also sleep then first thread 2 complete's its execution after which thread 1 completes its execution.
Such a behavior is not happening if I remove synchronized keyword from methods.
Can you please explain me the reason behind different way of processing the code with and without synchronized keywords.
Thanks in advance.
Such a behavior is not happening if I remove synchronized keyword from methods. Can you please explain me the reason behind different way of processing the code with and without synchronized keywords.
This is actually the entire purpose of the synchronized keyword. When you have several synchronized instance methods of the same class, only one may be executing at a time. You have written this:
class Common {
public synchronized void synchronizedMethod1(){}
public synchronized void synchronizedMethod2(){}
}
Because both methods are synchronized, only one may be executed at once. One of them can't start the other one is done.
How does this work? In short, you have a Common object and call a synchronized instance method of it. When you call synchronzedMethod1, that method will "lock" the Common object (called "acquiring the lock"). While that method has that lock on that Common object, if you try to call any other synchronized method on that same object, it will try to lock it and it will find that it's already locked. So any other attempt to lock the object will hang until they can do so. Once synchronizedMethod1 finishes, it will unlock the Common object (called "releasing the lock") and anybody can then try to lock it, such as synchronzedMethod2.
So in short, synchronized specifically makes it so you can't have two synchronized methods of the same class happening at once. This is useful because some problematic behavior can come from not doing this. As an example, ArrayList does not do this, so if one thread tries to add an object to an ArrayList while another tries to iterate over it, it might throw a ConcurrentModificationException and make everyone sad.
A sleeping thread does not release its locks, but you can replace your sleep(...) calls with wait(...). Keep in mind, though, that only the lock of the object having wait(...) called on it will be released, so you'd have to devise a different solution if you expected multiple locks to be released while waiting.
synchronising a method doesnt mean just the method itself synchronised
synchronized void x(){}
equals to:
void x(){
synchronised(this){}
}
Since both thread access same Common instance first thread will get the ownership of the Common object lock doesnt matter which synchronised method called and it will just release this lock after this method body completed its job.
If you would send two Common instance there would not be a problem since they are not static. Also you might be interested in ReentrantLock
First of all synchronized keyword is used to define mutual exclusion. Here mutual exclusion achieved by Monitor concept. One more thing is sleep does not release monitor. It just pause the execution of current thread for some time. Other threads which requires the monitor have to wait until the thread which acquired monitor release it.
There is two ways to use synchronized...
First one is using synchronized blocks.
synchronized(obj){...}
Here if any thread want to enter into synchronized block it have to get monitor of obj.
Second one is to using synchronized method.
synchronized void meth(){...}
Main difference between synchronised method & block is synchronised method use monitor of object it self & synchronised block can have monitor of any object.
Synchronized method can be defined using synchronized block as follows...
void meth(){
synchronized (this){
//method body
}
}
Now you can use the synchronised block to prevent the problem of blocking another method. Here you have to define synchronised block on different objects so both methods can execute concurrently but multiple threads can not execute same method concurrently.

Why not using a try with lock in java?

I've read this topic, and this blog article about try with resources locks, as the question popped in my head.
But actually, what I'd rather like would be a try with lock, I mean without lock instantiation. It would release us from the verbose
lock.lock();
try {
//Do some synchronized actions throwing Exception
} finally {
//unlock even if Exception is thrown
lock.unlock();
}
Would rather look like :
? implements Unlockable lock ;
...
try(lock) //implicitly calls lock.lock()
{
//Do some synchronized actions throwing Exception
} //implicitly calls finally{lock.unlock();}
So it would not be a TWR, but just some boilerplate cleaning.
Do you have any technical reasons to suggest describing why this would not be a reasonable idea?
EDIT : to clarify the difference between what I propose and a simple synchronized(lock){} block, check this snippet :
import java.util.concurrent.locks.Condition;
import java.util.concurrent.locks.ReentrantLock;
public class Test {
public static void main(String[] args) {
ReentrantLock locker =new ReentrantLock();
Condition condition = locker.newCondition();
Thread t1 = new Thread("Thread1") {
#Override
public void run(){
synchronized(locker){
try {
condition.await();
} catch (InterruptedException e) {
Thread.currentThread().interrupt();
}
System.out.println("Thread1 finished");
}
}
} ;
Thread t2 = new Thread("Thread2") {
#Override
public void run(){
synchronized(locker){
Thread.yield();
condition.signal();
System.out.println("blabla2");
}
}
} ;
t1.start();
t2.start();
}
}
Execution will result in a IllegalMonitorStateException, so lock() and unlock() methods are not implicitly called within synchronized block.
If you had to deal with a simple case like that, where the pattern of locking/unlocking was limited to a narrow scope like this, you probably don't want to use the more complicated Lock class and probably should just be using the synchronized keyword, instead. That being said, if for some reason you needed this with the more complicated Lock object, it should be relatively straight-forward to create a wrapper around Lock that implements the AutoCloseable interface to be able to do just that. Example:
class AutoUnlock implements AutoCloseable {
private final Lock lock;
public static AutoUnlock lock(Lock lock) {
lock.lock();
return new AutoUnlock(lock);
}
public static AutoUnlock tryLock(Lock lock) {
if (!lock.tryLock()) {
throw new LockNotAcquiredException();
}
return new AutoUnlock(lock);
}
#Override
public void close() {
lock.unlock();
}
private AutoUnlock(Lock lock) {
this.lock = lock;
}
}
With a wrapper like the above, you could then do:
try (AutoUnlock autoUnlock = AutoUnlock.lock(lock)) {
// ... do whatever that requires the lock ...
}
That being said, the Lock class is typically used for very complicated locking scenarios where this wouldn't be particularly useful. For example, Lock objects may be locked in one function in a class and later unlocked in another function (e.g. locking a row in a database in response to an incoming remote procedure call, and then unlocking that row in response to a later RPC), and thus having such a wrapper or making a Lock AutoCloseable, itself, would be of limited use for the way it is actually used. For more simple scenarios, it's more common to just use an existing concurrent datastructure or use synchronized.
This answer serves to explain the behavior of your edit. The purpose of synchronized is to lock the monitor of the given object when the thread enters the block (waiting if it isn't available) and releasing it when the thread exits the block.
Lock is a higher level abstraction.
Lock implementations provide more extensive locking operations than
can be obtained using synchronized methods and statements.
You can use it to lock across method boundaries. synchronized is not able to do this so a Lock cannot be implemented solely with synchronized and no implementation I've ever seen uses it. Instead, they use other patterns, like compare and swap. They use this to set a state atomically within a Lock object which marks a certain thread as the owner of the lock.
In your code snippet, you try to invoke
condition.signal();
in a thread which does not own the Lock from which the condition was created. The javadoc states
An implementation may (and typically does) require that the current
thread hold the lock associated with this Condition when this method
is called. Implementations must document this precondition and any
actions taken if the lock is not held. Typically, an exception such as
IllegalMonitorStateException will be thrown.
That's what happened here.
Executing
synchronized (lock) {}
makes the current thread lock (and then release) the monitor on the object referenced by lock. Executing
lock.lock();
makes the current thread set some state within the object referenced by lock which identifies it as the owner.

Is Synchronized Blocking?

In java, I have 2 threads in my client, one is controlling the network flow, the other one is processing the messages, draws game etc. What I am trying to do is when a packet comes, the network thread will call messageReceived method of the game thread, containing the message as parameter. Will it block networking thread if i make the function messageReceived as synchronized and there are 2 packets sequentally come before messageReceived function ends, or it doesn't block and my packet is lost because network thread couldn't call messageReceived function which is already being used by game thread ?
When you use the synchronized keyword to sync a code section, then when another thread comes in that wants access to that section it will block until it can get access.
Correct, you're blocking on the IO thread. You want to only do light work on messageReceived() because of that ... perhaps only queue the message in some sort of FIFO for the processing thread to work on later. Your sync blocks should have as small a footprint as possible.
If a thread calls a synchronized method in a class, all the other threads will be blocked to call any synchronized method in that class because the object lock is not available. If your messageReceived is not working on any shared resource then keep it non-synchronized. In case it is using some shared resource then try to minimized the synchronized code by wrapping that code in synchronized block.
It sounds like you are attempting to solve a problem that could be easily avoided if you used a more mainstream design pattern such as the Observer Pattern. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Observer_pattern
Its easy to conceptualize but im more of a visual person. Heres a bit of code that helped me long ago understand what excatly syncorized did and how it worked. If you watch the output you will see when you add the synchronized attribute to the print function that you never see As and Bs mixed. but when you remove it you will see a much different output. It should be straight forward once you see it.
public class Main {
public static void main(String[] args) {
(new ThreadA()).start();
(new ThreadB()).start();
}
// try it with removing the synchronized: public static void print(String str) {
public static synchronized void print(String str) {
for(int i = 0; i<100; i++)
System.out.print(str);
System.out.println();
}
public static class ThreadA extends Thread {
public void run() {
while(true) {
print("A");
}
}
}
public static class ThreadB extends Thread {
public void run() {
while(true) {
print("B");
}
}
}
}
Yes, synchronized blocks a thread if the implicit lock has already locked by another thread. But there is a non-blocking alternative - java.util.concurrent.locks.Lock that is more flexible
Lock.tryLock()
acquires the lock only if it is free at the time of invocation
and
Lock.tryLock(long time, TimeUnit unit)
acquires the lock if it is free within the given waiting time and the current thread has not been interrupted.

BlockedLinkedQueue deadlock inside synchronized method

This could be a newbie question - I am running into a deadlock situation while using BlockedLinkedQueue - Here is a snipped of my code:
public class mytest {
private BlockedLinkedQueue myQueue;
public synchronized void consumer() {
...
myQueue.take()
...
}
public synchronized void producer() {
...
myQueue.put()
...
}
}
I am noticing that sometimes I run into deadlock. A lot of producer() threads are waiting on the method monitor, and one consumer is blocked on take(). Is this expected? I know that I don't really have to synchronize BLockedLinkedQUeue - but I have lot of other objects and I need to synchronize these methods..
Yes, this deadlock is expected. It occurs when consumer() is called with the empty queue. In this case consumer() holds lock on "this" and waits for an object from myQueue. Same time any producer() can't take lock on "this" (held by consumer) and thus can't put any object to myQueue, which prevents consumer from taking an object.
To resolve deadlock, you may make only part of methods synchronized or use simple queue and implements your own waiting for a data.
Example of partial synchronization:
public class mytest {
private BlockedLinkedQueue myQueue;
public void consumer() {
synchronized(this) {
...
}
myQueue.take();
synchronized (this) {
...
}
}
public void producer() {
synchronized(this) {
...
}
myQueue.put()
synchronized(this) {
...
}
}
}
In this case, lock on "this" is released during myQueue operation. And it will allow producer() to procede it's way and put an object to the queue.
Second example:
public class mytest {
private Queue myQueue;
public synchronized void consumer() {
...
while (myQueue.isEmpty()) {
this.wait();
}
myQueue.take()
...
}
public synchronized void producer() {
...
myQueue.put()
this.notify();
...
}
}
In this example lock on "this" is released during call to this.wait() (see Object.wait() for details) and it allows producer to put object to the queue. Also, producer wakes up one of consumers waiting for data.
Please, note, that in both cases producer method will be executed when only a "half" of consumer method is executed. I.e. consumer method is no more atomical at all, but only at it halfs. And if you need atomicity of the consumer, then you should think about better specification of the producer/consumer methods, because described deadlock is logical flaw in the "synchronization". You can't put object during execution of "atomic" consumer() method and at the same time consumer() requires object to be in the queue.
BlockedLinkedQueue? I think you mean LinkedBlockingQueue.
LinkedBlockingQueue is thread safe and you should not be hiding it behind the synchronization method modifiers. Removing those will may end your deadlock issue. Liberal use of synchronization is generally not a good idea--keep it to a minimum, just where you need it.
As maxkar points out, BlockingQueue.take() waits until there is something in the queue.
Retrieves and removes the head of this
queue, waiting if necessary until an
element becomes available.
If you are adamant about keeping the synchronization on the consumer() method in your class, consider using BlockingQueue.poll(long timeout, TimeUnit unit). This will allow you to craft logic that gracefully deals with an empty queue.

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