Question

I think I’m doing it wrong. I am creating threads that are suppose to crunch some data from a shared queue. My problem is the program is slow and a memory hog, I suspect that the queue may not be as shared as I hoped it would be. I suspect this because in my code I added a line that displayed the size of the queue and if I launch 2 threads then I get two outputs with completely different numbers and seem to increment on their own(I thought it could be the same number but maybe it was jumping from 100 to 2 and so on but after watching it shows 105 and 5 and goes at a different rate. If I have 4 threads then I see 4 different numbers).

Here’s snippet of the relevant parts. I create a static class with the data I want in the queue at the top of the program

static class queue_class {
        int number;
        int[] data;
        Context(int number,  int[] data) {
            this.number = number;
            this.data = data;
        }
    }

Then I create the queue after sending some jobs to the callable..

static class process_threaded implements Callable<Void> {
    // queue with contexts to process
    private Queue<queue_class> queue;

    process_threaded(queue_class request) {
        queue = new ArrayDeque<queue_class>();
        queue.add(request);
    }

    public Void call() {
        while(!queue.isEmpty()) {
            System.out.println("in contexts queue with a size of " + queue.size());
            Context current = contexts.poll();
            //get work and process it, if it work great then the solution goes elsewhere
            //otherwise, depending on the data, its either discarded or parts of it is added back to queue
            queue.add(new queue_class(k, data_list)); 

As you can see, there’s 3 options for the data, get sent off if data is good, discard if its totally horrible or sent back to the queue. I think the queues are going when its getting sent back but I suspect because each thread is working on its own queue and not a shared one.

Is this guess correct and am I doing this wrong?

Answer 1

You are correct in your assessment that each thread is (probably) working with its own queue, since you are creating a queue in the constructor of your Callable. (It’s actually very weird to have a Callable<Void> — isn’t that just a Runnable?)

There are other problems there, for example, the fact that you’re working with a queue that isn’t thread-safe, or the fact that your code won’t compile as it is written.

The important question, though, is do you really need to explicitly create a queue in the first place? Why not have an ExecutorService to which you submit your Callables (or Runnables if you decide to make that switch): Pass a reference to the executor into your Callables, and they can add new Callables to the executor’s queue of tasks to run. No need to reinvent the wheel.

For example:

static class process_threaded implements Runnable {
    // Reference to an executor
    private final ExecutorService exec;
    // Reference to the job counter
    private final AtomicInteger jobCounter;
    // Request to process
    private queue_class request;

    process_threaded( ExecutorService exec, AtomicInteger counter, queue_class request) {
        this.exec = exec;
        this.jobCounter = counter;
        this.jobCounter.incrementAndGet(); // Assuming that you will always
                                           // submit the process_threaded to
                                           // the executor if you create it.
        this.request = request;
    }

    public run() {
        //get work and process **request**, if it work great then the solution goes elsewhere
        //otherwise, depending on the data, its either discarded or parts of are added back to the executor
        exec.submit( new process_threaded( exec, new queue_class(k, data_list) ) );

        // Can do some more work

        // Always run before returning: counter update and notify the launcher
        synchronized(jobCounter){
            jobCounter.decrementAndGet();
            jobCounter.notifyAll();
        }
    }
}

Edit:

To solve your problem of when to shut down the executor, I think the simplest solution is to have a job counter, and shutdown when it reaches 0. For thread-safety an AtomicInteger is probably the best choice. I added some code above to incorporate the change. Then your launching code would look something like this:

void theLauncher() {

    AtomicInteger jobCounter = new AtomicInteger( 0 );

    ExecutorService exec = Executors.newFixedThreadPool( Runtime.getRuntime().availableProcesses());

    exec.submit( new process_threaded( exec, jobCounter, someProcessRequest ) );
    // Can submit some other things here of course...

    // Wait for jobs to complete:
    for(;;jobCounter.get() > 0){
        synchronized( jobCounter ){ // (I'm not sure if you have to have the synchronized block, but I think this is safer.
            if( jobCounter.get() > 0 )
                jobCounter.wait();
        }
    }

    // Now you can shutdown:
    exec.shutdown();
}