Computing Magazine

My Custom Thread Pool Executor in Java

Posted on the 27 February 2013 by Abhishek Somani @somaniabhi

ThreadPoolExecutor is a feature added by java concurrent api to maintain and reuse threads efficiently , so that our programs don't have to worry about creating and destroying threads and focus on the core functionality. I have created a custom thread pool executor to get better understanding of how thread pool executor would work .
Functionality :
  • It maintains a fixed thread pool ,and creates threads and start the threads even if no task is submitted whereas ThreadPoolExecutor creates threads on demand , i.e. whenever a runnable is submitted to pool and the number of threads are less than core pool size .
  • In ThreadPoolExecutor, we provide a waiting queue ,where new runnable task waits when all threads are busy running existing task. Once the queue is filled , new threads will be created up to maximum pool size. In MyThreadPool , i am storing the runnable in a linked list , so every task will wait in the list and it is unbounded , so no usage of maxPoolSize in this .
  • In ThreadPoolExecutor , we use Future Objects to get the result from task , future.get() method will block if the result is not available , or we use CompletionService . In MyThreadPoolExecutor , i have created a simple interface called ResultListener , user has to provide a implementation of this as to how he wants the output to be processed . After every task is completed , the ResultListener will get callback with the output of task or error method will be called in case of any exception.
  • When shutdown method is called , MyThreadPoolExecutor will stop accepting new tasks and complete the remaining tasks .
  • I have provided very basic functionality as compared to ThreadPoolExecutor ,  i have used simple thread mechanism like wait() , notify() , notifyAll(), and join().
  • Performance wise it is similar to ThreadPoolExecutor , some times better in some cases. Do let me know if you find any interesting results or ways to improve it .   

package com.util;

import java.util.concurrent.Callable;

/**
 * Run submitted task of {@link MyThreadPool} After running the task , It calls
 * on {@link ResultListener}object with {@link Output}which contains returned
 * result of {@link Callable}task. Waits if the pool is empty.
 * 
 * @author abhishek
 * 
 * @param 
 */

import java.util.concurrent.Callable;
/**
* Run submitted task of {@link MyThreadPool} After running the task , It calls
* on {@link ResultListener}object with {@link Output}which contains returned
* result of {@link Callable}task. Waits if the pool is empty.
*
* @author abhishek
*
* @param <V>
*/
public class MyThread<V> extends Thread {
    /**
    * MyThreadPool object, from which the task to be run
    */
    private MyThreadPool<V> pool;
    private boolean active = true;
    public boolean isActive() {
        return active;
    }
    public void setPool(MyThreadPool<V> p) {
        pool = p;
    }
    /**
    * Checks if there are any unfinished tasks left. if there are , then runs
    * the task and call back with output on resultListner Waits if there are no
    * tasks available to run If shutDown is called on MyThreadPool, all waiting
    * threads will exit and all running threads will exit after finishing the
    * task
    */
    public void run() {
        ResultListener<V> result = pool.getResultListener();
        Callable<V> task;
        while (true)
        {
            task = pool.removeFromQueue();
            if (task != null)
            {
                try
                {
                    V output = task.call();
                    result.finish(output);
                } catch (Exception e)
                {
                    result.error(e);
                }
            } else
            {
                if (!isActive())
                break;
                else
                {
                    synchronized (pool.getWaitLock())
                    {
                        try
                        {
                            pool.getWaitLock().wait();
                        } catch (InterruptedException e)
                        {
                            // TODO Auto-generated catch block
                            e.printStackTrace();
                        }
                    }
                }
            }
        }
    }
    void shutdown() {
        active = false;
    }
}

package com.util;
import java.util.LinkedList;
import java.util.concurrent.Callable;
/**
* This class is used to execute submitted {@link Callable} tasks. this class
* creates and manages fixed number of threads User will provide a
* {@link ResultListener}object in order to get the Result of submitted task
*
* @author abhishek
*
*
*/
public class MyThreadPool<V> {
    private Object waitLock = new Object();
    public Object getWaitLock() {
        return waitLock;
    }
    /**
    * list of threads for completing submitted tasks
    */
    private final LinkedList<MyThread<V>> threads;
    /**
    * submitted task will be kept in this list untill they run by one of
    * threads in pool
    */
    private final LinkedList<Callable<V>> tasks;
    /**
    * shutDown flag to shut Down service
    */
    private volatile boolean shutDown;
    /**
    * ResultListener to get back the result of submitted tasks
    */
    private ResultListener<V> resultListener;
    /**
    * initializes the threadPool by starting the threads threads will wait till
    * tasks are not submitted
    *
    * @param size
    * Number of threads to be created and maintained in pool
    * @param myResultListener
    * ResultListener to get back result
    */
    public MyThreadPool(int size, ResultListener<V> myResultListener) {
        tasks = new LinkedList<Callable<V>>();
        threads = new LinkedList<MyThread<V>>();
        shutDown = false;
        resultListener = myResultListener;
        for (int i = 0; i < size; i++) {
            MyThread<V> myThread = new MyThread<V>();
            myThread.setPool(this);
            threads.add(myThread);
            myThread.start();
        }
    }
    public ResultListener<V> getResultListener() {
        return resultListener;
    }
    public void setResultListener(ResultListener<V> resultListener) {
        this.resultListener = resultListener;
    }
    public boolean isShutDown() {
        return shutDown;
    }
    public int getThreadPoolSize() {
        return threads.size();
    }
    public synchronized Callable<V> removeFromQueue() {
        return tasks.poll();
    }
    public synchronized void addToTasks(Callable<V> callable) {
        tasks.add(callable);
    }
    /**
    * submits the task to threadPool. will not accept any new task if shutDown
    * is called Adds the task to the list and notify any waiting threads
    *
    * @param callable
    */
    public void submit(Callable<V> callable) {
        if (!shutDown) {
            addToTasks(callable);
            synchronized (this.waitLock) {
                waitLock.notify();
            }
            } else {
            System.out.println("task is rejected.. Pool shutDown executed");
        }
    }
    /**
    * Initiates a shutdown in which previously submitted tasks are executed,
    * but no new tasks will be accepted. Waits if there are unfinished tasks
    * remaining
    *
    */
    public void stop() {
        for (MyThread<V> mythread : threads) {
            mythread.shutdown();
        }
        synchronized (this.waitLock) {
            waitLock.notifyAll();
        }
        for (MyThread<V> mythread : threads) {
            try {
                mythread.join();
                } catch (InterruptedException e) {
                // TODO Auto-generated catch block
                e.printStackTrace();
            }
        }
    }
}

package com.util;

/**
 * This interface imposes finish method 
 * which is used to get the {@link Output} object 
 * of finished task
 * @author abhishek
 *
 * @param 
 */

public interface ResultListener  {
 
 public void finish(T obj);
 public void error(Exception ex);
 
}
you can implement this class as you want to get back and process the result returned by tasks.
package com.util;

public class DefaultResultListener implements ResultListener{

 @Override
 public void finish(Object obj) {
  
 }

 @Override
 public void error(Exception ex) {
  ex.printStackTrace();
 }

}


For example this class will add the number returned by tasks .
package com.util;

import java.util.concurrent.atomic.AtomicInteger;

/**
 * ResultListener class to keep track of total matched count
 * @author abhishek
 * 
 * @param 
 */
public class MatchedCountResultListener implements ResultListener {

	/**
	 * matchedCount to keep track of the number of matches returned by submitted
	 * task
	 */
	AtomicInteger matchedCount = new AtomicInteger();

	/**
	 * this method is called by ThreadPool to give back the result of callable
	 * task. if the task completed successfully then increment the matchedCount by
	 * result count
	 */
	@Override
	public void finish(V obj) {
		//System.out.println("count is "+obj);
		matchedCount.addAndGet((Integer)obj);
	}

	/**
	 * print exception thrown in running the task
	 */
	@Override
	public void error(Exception ex) {
		ex.printStackTrace();
	}
	
	
	/**
	 * returns the final matched count of all the finished tasks
	 * 
	 * @return
	 */
	public int getFinalCount() {
		return matchedCount.get();
	}
}

This is a test class which runs simple for loop using CompletionService and MyThreadPoolExecutor
package test;

import java.util.concurrent.Callable;
import java.util.concurrent.CompletionService;
import java.util.concurrent.ExecutorCompletionService;
import java.util.concurrent.ExecutorService;
import java.util.concurrent.Executors;
import java.util.concurrent.Future;

import com.util.DefaultResultListener;
import com.util.MyThreadPool;

public class TestClass {
	
	public static void main(String[] args) throws InterruptedException {
		CompletionService threadService;
		ExecutorService service = Executors.newFixedThreadPool(2);
		threadService = new ExecutorCompletionService(service);
		
		long b = System.currentTimeMillis();
		for(int i =0;i<50000;i++){
			threadService.submit(new MyRunable (i));
		}
		
		service.shutdown();
		System.out.println("time taken by Completion Service " + (System.currentTimeMillis()-b));
		
		
		DefaultResultListener result = new DefaultResultListener();
		MyThreadPool newPool = new MyThreadPool(2,result);
		long a = System.currentTimeMillis();
		
		int cc =0;
		for(int i =0;i<50000;i++)
		{
			cc = cc+i;
		}
		System.out.println("time taken without any pool " + (System.currentTimeMillis()-a));
		a= System.currentTimeMillis();
		
		for(int i =0;i<5000;i++){
			newPool.submit(new MyRunable (i));
		}
		
		newPool.stop();
		System.out.println("time taken by myThreadPool " + (System.currentTimeMillis()-a));
	}
	
	
	

}

class MyRunable implements Callable
{
	int index = -1;
	public MyRunable(int index)
	{
		this.index = index;
	}
	@Override
	public Integer call() throws Exception {
		return index;
	}
	
}

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