Java executors: how to be notified, without blocking, when a task completes?
callback, executor, java, notify
Solution
Define a callback interface to receive whatever parameters you want to pass along in the completion notification. Then invoke it at the end of the task.
You could even write a general wrapper for Runnable tasks, and submit these to `ExecutorService`. Or, see below for a mechanism built into Java 8.
class CallbackTask implements Runnable {
private final Runnable task;
private final Callback callback;
CallbackTask(Runnable task, Callback callback) {
this.task = task;
this.callback = callback;
}
public void run() {
task.run();
callback.complete();
}
}
With `CompletableFuture`, Java 8 included a more elaborate means to compose pipelines where processes can be completed asynchronously and conditionally. Here's a contrived but complete example of notification.
import java.util.concurrent.CompletableFuture;
import java.util.concurrent.ThreadLocalRandom;
import java.util.concurrent.TimeUnit;
public class GetTaskNotificationWithoutBlocking {
public static void main(String... argv) throws Exception {
ExampleService svc = new ExampleService();
GetTaskNotificationWithoutBlocking listener = new GetTaskNotificationWithoutBlocking();
CompletableFuture<String> f = CompletableFuture.supplyAsync(svc::work);
f.thenAccept(listener::notify);
System.out.println("Exiting main()");
}
void notify(String msg) {
System.out.println("Received message: " + msg);
}
}
class ExampleService {
String work() {
sleep(7000, TimeUnit.MILLISECONDS); /* Pretend to be busy... */
char[] str = new char[5];
ThreadLocalRandom current = ThreadLocalRandom.current();
for (int idx = 0; idx < str.length; ++idx)
str[idx] = (char) ('A' + current.nextInt(26));
String msg = new String(str);
System.out.println("Generated message: " + msg);
return msg;
}
public static void sleep(long average, TimeUnit unit) {
String name = Thread.currentThread().getName();
long timeout = Math.min(exponential(average), Math.multiplyExact(10, average));
System.out.printf("%s sleeping %d %s...%n", name, timeout, unit);
try {
unit.sleep(timeout);
System.out.println(name + " awoke.");
} catch (InterruptedException abort) {
Thread.currentThread().interrupt();
System.out.println(name + " interrupted.");
}
}
public static long exponential(long avg) {
return (long) (avg * -Math.log(1 - ThreadLocalRandom.current().nextDouble()));
}
}
Problem
Say I have a queue full of tasks which I need to submit to an executor service. I want them processed one at a time. The simplest way I can think of is to: - Take a task from the queue - Submit it to the executor - Call .get on the returned Future and block until a result is available - Take another task from the queue... However, I am trying to avoid blocking completely. If I have 10,000 such queues, which need their tasks processed one at a time, I'll run out of stack space because most of them will be holding on to blocked threads. What I would like is to submit a task and provide a call-back which is called when the task is complete. I'll use that call-back notification as a flag to send the next task. (functionaljava and jetlang apparently use such non-blocking algorithms, but I can't understand their code) How can I do that using JDK's java.util.concurrent, short of writing my own executor service? (the queue which feeds me these tasks may itself block, but that is an issue to be tackled later)