how to detect when a thread has completed execution in blackberry? - multithreading

How can I detect when the below code/thread has completed execution in Blackberry:
UiApplication.getUiApplication().invokeAndWait(new Runnable() {
public void run() {
EventInjector.KeyEvent inject = new EventInjector.KeyEvent
(EventInjector.KeyEvent.KEY_DOWN,Characters.ENTER, 0);
inject.post();
inject.post();
}
});
Can I get a notification when this thread has executed so that I can start another thread?
Thanks in advance.

Typically, the join() method is used to determine when a thread has finished. Calling join() typically blocks, so use it with care.
Here is a reference.

You need a synchronized block, here is a short description of how it works.
The "sleeping" thread must lock an object, and call wait() on it.
The other thread locks the same object, and sends a notify() or notifyAll() to wake up the first one.
If you start the thread explicitly (not in this case), you can simply call join() on it, and synchronously wait for it to finish.
- Edit: using join() on a thread
Assuming you already have a runnable object:
Thread myThread = new Thread(myRunnable);
myThread.start();
doOtherStuff();
myThread.join();
But if something goes wrong, you are stuck on the join() call, because BlackBerry has no timeout for this call.

Related

Block main thread till worker thread terminates

I am new to c++ and I need to solve following problem
/* runs in context of worker thread
void thread1_fun() {
//body
//signal_thread2_fun to unblock
}
/* runs in context of main thread*/
void thread2_fun() {
block on worker thread1_fun and waiting
//body
}
I am sure I need to lock/semaphore/mutex but not sure how?
Thanks in advance.
You can use std::thread::join().
http://en.cppreference.com/w/cpp/thread/thread/join
Edit: If you do not want to wait for the thread to finish, you may be looking for std::condition_variable. http://en.cppreference.com/w/cpp/thread/condition_variable
Please note that you still have to call detach or join on the thread before it is destroyed.
Edit 2: I think a condition variable will work in your scenario, because it expresses the intention that one thread should wait until it gets notified.
For the implementation you need to place a mutex and the condition_variable were both threads can access them. Member variables would work if both are member functions of the same class. Otherwise you can pass them a shared_ptr to a struct with the shared data.

ensuring that all threads finish before JVM completely terminates

Let's say I have a SwingWorker object and it's still in its doInBackground() method. If a user calls system.exit(0)...how do I best ensure that the SwingWorker daemon/worker thread completes? I imagine that I have to do this manually. The best idea I have at the moment is to call join() on all outstanding worker threads in/on the same thread that calls System.exit(0)...is this correct?
AND, if using join() is a good idea...should I use it in some sort of while loop in the case that the thread calling join() has spurious activity?
For instance:
//pseudocode
Vector<Thread> threadsThatMustFinishBeforeTerminatingJVM = new Vector<Thread>();
Thread closingThread = new Thread(){
public void run(){
for(Thread t: threadsThatMustFinishBeforeTerminatingJVM){
// closingThread waits for t to finish, (is this *really* safe?)
t.join();
}
System.exit(0);
}
}
closingThread.start();
Is this at all correct?
Take a look here
"The System.exit method forces termination of all threads in the Java virtual machine."
If you call system.exit you're basically saying, "exit now, I don't care what's going on." If you want to shut down cleanly you're going to need to set us some kind of coordination/synchronization between your threads.
If your doInBackground method is still active you could wait until it completes before exiting, some synchronization primitive, shared lock, or some such.
You can add some logic in the done() method of your SwingWorker that would allow an exit.
The better way is probably to query getState() on your SwingWorker. It'll return DONE if the task has completed and if so you can exit, otherwise just wait.

Disabling a System.Threading.Timer instance while its callback is in progress

I am using two instances of System.Threading.Timer to fire off 2 tasks that are repeated periodically.
My question is: If the timer is disabled but at that point of time this timer is executing its callback on a thread, then will the Main method exit, or will it wait for the executing callbacks to complete?
In the code below, Method1RunCount is synchronized for read and write using lock statement ( this part of code is not shown below). The call back for timer1 increments Method1RunCount by 1 at end of each run.
static void Main(string[] args)
{
TimerCallback callback1 = Method1;
System.Threading.Timer timer1 = new System.Threading.Timer(callback1,null,0, 90000);
TimerCallback callback2 = Method2;
System.Threading.Timer timer2 = new System.Threading.Timer(callback2, null, 0, 60000);
while (true)
{
System.Threading.Thread.Sleep(250);
if (Method1RunCount == 4)
{
//DISABLE the TIMERS
timer1.Change(System.Threading.Timeout.Infinite, System.Threading.Timeout.Infinite);
timer2.Change(System.Threading.Timeout.Infinite, System.Threading.Timeout.Infinite);
break;
}
}
}
This kind of code tends to work by accident, the period of the timer is large enough to avoid the threading race on the Method1RunCount variable. Make the period smaller and there's a real danger that the main thread won't see the value "4" at all. Odds go down considerably when the processor is heavily loaded and the main thread doesn't get scheduled for while. The timer's callback can then execute more than once while the main thread is waiting for the processor. Completing missing the value getting incremented to 4. Note how the lock statement does not in fact prevent this, it isn't locked by the main thread since it is probably sleeping.
There's also no reasonable guess you can make at how often Method2 runs. Not just because it has a completely different timer period but fundamentally because it isn't synchronized to either the Method1 or the Main method execution at all.
You'd normally increment Method1RunCount at the end of Method1. That doesn't otherwise guarantee that Method1 won't be aborted. It runs on a threadpool thread, they have the Thread.IsBackground property always set to true. So the CLR will readily abort them when the main thread exits. This again tends to not cause a problem by accident.
If it is absolutely essential that Method1 executes exactly 4 times then the simple way to ensure that is to let Method1 do the counting. Calling Timer.Change() inside the method is fine. Use a class like AutoResetEvent to let the main thread know about it. Which now no longer needs the Sleep anymore. You still need a lock to ensure that Method1 cannot be re-entered while it is executing. A good way to know that you are getting thread synchronization wrong is when you see yourself using Thread.Sleep().
From the docs on System.Threading.Timer (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.threading.timer.aspx):
When a timer is no longer needed, use the Dispose method to free the
resources held by the timer. Note that callbacks can occur after the
Dispose() method overload has been called, because the timer queues
callbacks for execution by thread pool threads. You can use the
Dispose(WaitHandle) method overload to wait until all callbacks have
completed.

Suspend main thread in qt

I want to make a function that stops the main thread and restarts restarts it after a couple of seconds. I tried the following:
void Mainwindow::timeout()
{
QTimer timer;
timer.setSingleShot(true);
timer.setInterval(time*1000);
connect(&timer,SIGNAL(timeout()),MainWindow::thread(),SLOT(start()));
timer.start();
SuspendThread(MainWindow::thread());
}
Unfortunately this doesnt do a whole lot... Any tips?
Maybe I am overlooking something, but a "function that stops [...] and restarts after a couple of seconds" sounds like sleep() to me. Let the OS do the timing instead of re-inventing the wheel.
Or is there any reason you can't post some message to the main thread? In this simple use case maybe even via a single mutex would be enough. Set the mutex from another thread, check it in the main threads event loop and possibly call sleep() directly.
That also eases debugging, as you have a single place the main thread will go sleeping willingly instead of being suspendend on the fly by other threads.
your timer object is destroyed at the end of the the Mainwindow::timeout() function, so it will never emit its timeout() signal.
I am not sure why you would want to stop event loop, but you can sleep your thread by waiting on locked mutex for x milliseconds.
In the code below you will use waitCondition.wait(&mutex, msecs); to wait on a condition variable for maximum msecs milliseconds. Since mutex is locked, as there is no another thread which will send wake up signal, this will block your thread for timeout milliseconds. Reference is here.
#include <QWaitCondition>
#include <QMutex>
class Sleep
{
public:
static void msleep(unsigned long msecs)
{
QMutex mutex;
mutex.lock();
QWaitCondition waitCondition;
waitCondition.wait(&mutex, msecs);
mutex.unlock(); // Not necessary since new mutex will always be created,
// but since destroying locked mutex
// is bringing undefined behavior, let's follow some ethics
}
};

Thread scheduling issue with MFC and AfxBeginThread

I'm creating a worker thread in MFC with AfxBeginThread, but the thread is not getting scheduled. Here's the code:
CWinThread* worker = AfxBeginThread(initialUpdateWorkerThread, this);
DWORD dwExitCode = 0;
while(GetExitCodeThread(worker->m_hThread, &dwExitCode))
{
if(dwExitCode != STILL_ACTIVE)
break;
::Sleep(100);
}
When I run this, this loop just livelocks because initialUpdateWorkerThread is never called (I've put break points and message boxes at the top of it) so dwExitCode is always STILL_ACITVE. But if I put in a call to AfxMessageBox before the loop but after AfxBeginThread then the function is called. This makes me think that somehow I'm not calling the right function to get the thread scheduled, but a call to AfxMessageBox causes it to get scheduled.
How can I force the thread to be scheduled? I would think sleep would do that, but in this case it doesn't seem to.
Your worker thread is probably trying to send your main thread a message, but since you aren't processing messages on on the main thread, the worker thread simply waits. You can confirm this by simply breaking into the debugger to see what the worker thread is doing.

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