Overview of package util.concurrent Release 1.3.2.

by Doug Lea

This package provides standardized, efficient versions of utility classes commonly encountered in concurrent Java programming. This code consists of implementations of ideas that have been around for ages, and is merely intended to save you the trouble of coding them. Discussions of the rationale and applications of several of these classes can be found in the second edition of Concurrent Programming in Java. There are also pdf slides providing an overview of the package. See also JSR 166 that will define a similar package for an upcoming JDK release.

The package mainly consists of implementations of a few interfaces:

Plus some utilities and frameworks that build upon these.

If you arrived at page
http://gee.cs.oswego.edu/dl/classes/EDU/oswego/cs/dl/util/concurrent/intro.html
following links from your local documentation, please check the version number and get an update if you are running an outdated version.

Installation

This package, currently declared as
EDU.oswego.cs.dl.util.concurrent
is available in (tar.gz format) or (zip format).

It is currently distributed in source form only. To build it, use a Java 1.2+ compiler to: 

  javac -d [SOMEWHERE IN YOUR CLASSPATH] *.java

The classes in the misc directory can be built the same way.

To use it, add to java files: 

  import EDU.oswego.cs.dl.util.concurrent.*

You can also create a jar or zip file of the compiled classes and add them to your classpath.

All documentation except for this file was produced by (JDK1.2) javadoc, which places some index and summary files outside the current directory. This can cause some broken links on unpacked versions. You can avoid this, and integrate with your local javadoc-produced documentation by running: 

  javadoc -public -d [BASE OF SOME JAVADOC PATH] *.java

Contents

Sync
Interface for classes used as exclusion, resource management, and related synchronization aids, supporting methods acquire, attempt(msecs), and release.

Implementations

Semaphore
Default implementation of Semaphores, providing no special ordering guarantees.
WaiterPreferenceSemaphore
Provides protection against barging (infinite overtaking)
FIFOSemaphore
Provides first-in/first-out ordering
PrioritySemaphore
Prefers notifications to higher-priority threads
Mutex
Basic non-reentrant mutual exclusion lock
ReentrantLock
Java-style per-thread mutual exclusion lock
Latch
A condition that is acquirable forever more after the first release
CountDown
A condition that is acquirable forever more after the nth release.

The following implementation classes do not themselves perform any synchronization, but serve as adaptors, glue, and extensibility hooks for those that do. They may also be helpful when using Syncs in generic before/after constructions:

NullSync
A no-op implementation: acquire and attempt always succeed.
TimeoutSync
Routes all calls to acquire to use attempt with a predefined timeout value.
LayeredSync
Cascades operations of two Syncs
ObservableSync
Issues calls to SyncObservers upon each acquire and release.

Related Classes

CondVar
Support for POSIX (pthreads) style condition variables
TimeoutException
A standardized time-out exception class

ReadWriteLock
Interface for pairs of locks, one for reading, and one for writing.

Implementations

WriterPreferenceReadWriteLock
The most useful and common policy
ReentrantWriterPreferenceReadWriteLock
Allows multiple lock holds as well as lock downgrading by writers.
ReaderPreferenceReadWriteLock
Prefers waiting readers to waiting writers.
FIFOReadWriteLock
Prefers earliest threads (whether readers or writers).

Barrier
Synchronization points for groups of threads.

Implementations

CyclicBarrier
A tool to force multiple threads to synchronize at a given point
Rendezvous
A cyclic barrier that does not rely on there being a predetermined number of participant threads, and allows threads to exchange information at each barrier point.

Related Classes

BrokenBarrierException
A standardized exception for barrier synchronization failures

Channel
Interface for queues, buffers, conduits and pipes supporting blocking put and take, as well as timeout-based offer and poll. To assist efforts to use channels with somewhat greater type safety, Channel is defined as a subinterface of Puttable and Takable, each defining only one side of the channel. Also, the BoundedChannel subinterface is used for channels with finite capacities.

Implementations

LinkedQueue
An unbounded linked-list-based queue. This is usually the best choice for a general-purpose queue.
BoundedLinkedQueue
A linked queue with a capacity bound
BoundedBuffer
An array-based bounded buffer
Slot
A one-slot bounded buffer. (Note that this can also serve as a restricted form of Synchronized variable.)
SynchronousChannel
A zero-slot CSP/Ada-style channel in which every put must wait for a take, and vice versa.
BoundedPriorityQueue
A channel based on a Heap data structure. Elements must either be Comparable, or comparable using a supplied Comparator
WaitFreeQueue
An unbounded linked-list-based queue relying on atomic commits and retries rather than wait/notify.

Related Classes

DefaultChannelCapacity
A utility class that makes it easier to set default capacities for channels that have a capacity that must otherwise be set in constructors.

Executor
Interface for objects that execute Runnable commands.

Implementations

DirectExecutor
An implementation that just directly runs command in current thread.
LockedExecutor
An implementation that directly runs command within a supplied Sync lock in current thread.
ThreadedExecutor
An implementation that runs each command in a new thread.
QueuedExecutor
An implementation that queues commands for execution by a single background thread.
PooledExecutor
A tunable, extensible thread pool class

Related classes

Callable
Interface for runnable actions that return results
FutureResult
Holder for results of actions that can be set by Callables.
ThreadFactory
Interface for objects that create Thread objects
ThreadFactoryUser
Convenient base for classes that use ThreadFactories.
ClockDaemon
A utility for executing commands at given times, after given delays, or periodically with given cycles.
TimedCallable
Invokes a Callable in its own thread, but cancels it if not completed by a given maximum time.

Fork/Join Tasks
A fast lightweight task framework built upon Java threads, and geared for parallel computation.
FJTask
Abstract Base class for tasks.
FJTaskRunnerGroup
Control class for running Tasks.
FJTaskRunner
Underlying specialized Thread subclass for running Tasks.
Demos and examples
A directory of sample programs that use the Task framework. (See also a paper on the design and performance of this framework.)

Collections
Implementations of java.util.Collection and related classes that can help solve concurrency problems.
ConcurrentReaderHashMap
An analog of java.util.Hashtable that allows retrievals during updates.
ConcurrentHashMap
An analog of java.util.Hashtable that allows both concurrent retrievals and concurrent updates.
CopyOnWriteArrayList
A copy-on-write analog of java.util.ArrayList
CopyOnWriteArraySet
A java.util.Set based on CopyOnWriteArrayList.
SyncCollection
A wrapper class placing either Syncs or ReadWriteLocks around java.util.Collection
SyncSet
A wrapper around java.util.Set
SyncSortedSet
A wrapper around java.util.SortedSet
SyncList
A wrapper around java.util.List
SyncMap
A wrapper around java.util.Map
SyncSortedMap
A wrapper around java.util.SortedMap
Related classes
PropertyChangeMulticaster
A copy-on-write replacement for java.beans.PropertyChangeSupport
VetoableChangeMulticaster
A copy-on-write replacement for java.beans.VetoableChangeSupport

SynchronizedVariable
Simple synchronized analogs of Number and Ref classes in java.lang. Each has a subclass that in addition to maintaining synchronization, also provides notifications upon value changes and supports guarded waits.

Miscellany
There are some classes in the misc directory that might be of interest but aren't really part of this package. They include: If you would like to contribute other related classes, demos, usage examples, etc., please contact me. People frequently write me asking for such things.

Notes

Some Questions and Answers about Design and Implementation

Isn't it annoying that so many methods throw InterruptedException?
Maybe, but synchronization points are among the best points to detect interruption. Since this a package of synchronization aids, most methods detect interruption as early and often as reasonable to help avoid becoming stuck when the thread should be stopping anyway. In particular, interruption is normally checked before trying to obtain locks used in Syncs, which minimizes the vulnerability window for getting stuck when an activity is cancelled. (Between this and the finite durations that internal java synchronization locks are held in Sync classes, it is normally impossible for threads to become stuck waiting on internal locks when they have been interrupted.) These classes fail cleanly upon interruption. Normally, all you need to do upon catching an InterruptedException is either rethrow it, or clean up and then set Thread.currentThread().interrupt() to propagate status.

If you need to invoke such methods even when the thread is in an interrupted state (for example, during recovery actions) you can do: 

  void quietlyAcquire(Sync sync) {
    boolean wasInterrupted = Thread.interrupted(); // record and clear
    for (;;) {
      try {
        sync.acquire();   // or any other method throwing InterruptedException
        break;
      }
      catch (InterruptedException ex) { // re-interrupted; try again
        wasInterrupted = true;
      }
    }
    if (wasInterrupted) {              // re-establish interrupted state
      Thread.currentThread().interrupt();
    }
 }

The heavy use of InterruptedException makes it possible to write very responsive and robust code, at the expense of forcing class and method authors to contemplate possible exception handling actions at each interruption (and time-out) point. See the CPJ supplement page on cancellation for more discussion of some associated design issues.

Why is there so much near-duplication of code?
You'd think there would be some nice way to unify more classes to share significant aspects of synchronization mechanics. But standard lines of attack for doing this turn out unsatisfying at best. The main reason for creating this package is that even simple classes involving concurrency control mechanics are sometimes tedious, repetitive, tricky, and/or error-prone to write, so it is nice to have them written already.

Why do most methods return false/null after timeouts rather than throwing TimeoutException?
Because I think it would normally be misleading to throw exceptions. In Java, timeout arguments merely provide hints about when threads should be woken to check out the state of the world. Due to scheduling delays, threads need not resume immediately after their timeouts elapse, so real-time-based timeout exceptions would not be appropriate. The simplest course of action is just to report whether the condition the thread is waiting for does hold after waiting for at least this period. Returning false/null is not necessarily an exceptional situation. In those classes where it is exceptional (in some classes layered on top of basic Syncs and Channels) failed timeouts are converted to TimeoutExceptions. You can do the same in your own code using these classes. As of version 1.1.0, this is made simpler to carry out, since TimeoutException now extends InterruptedException.

Why aren't there deadlock-detecting Syncs or related classes for detecting lockups?
Because timeouts appear to be more generally useful. In fact, it is hard to imagine contexts where deadlock detection is a better option than timeouts in Java. A timeout can serve as a heuristic deadlock detection device, but can also serve to detect stalled IO, network partitions, and related failures. Program responses to deadlock are hardly ever different than responses to these other failures. So, it is usually a good idea to use timeouts as general-purpose heuristic detectors for all liveness problems, subdividing responses to particular failures (for example, by subclassing TimeoutException), only when necessary. Additionally, there are two problems with implementing deadlock-detecting Syncs that make them unattractive choices: (1) They can only detect deadlock among uses of the particular Sync classes being used, so cannot deal with deadlocks involving builtin synchronization (2) lock cycle detection adds overhead to each lock acquire and release. The main context in which deadlock detection would be useful is during program debugging, but here, it would be better to rely on specially instrumented JVMs. (Note that it is easy to transform code that relies on acquire to instead use timeouts via the TimeoutSync class. This can be a good way to make code more robust with respect to locking problems.)

Why isn't there a distinct Lock or MutualExclusionLock interface?
Because many objects implementing the Sync interface can be used as locks if they are in appropriate states, but not all of them can always be used as such. Additionally, there are several senses of mutual exclusion (for example, reentrant vs non-reentrant, full vs read/write). Since there is no way to say that a given class only sometimes conforms to the intended sense of a subinterface, the flexibility and simplicity of only using a single principle interface (Sync) for all such types outweighs the potential advantages of finer-grained categorizations.

Why do so many methods perform notify within InterruptedException catches?
Because when notify's and interrupt's happen at about the same time, JVMs are currently free to treat them independently, so a notified thread could return out as interrupted. In classes using notify rather than notifyAll, the extra notify in the catch clause is a safeguard to ensure that a non-interrupted thread, if one exists, will be notified. See my CPJ book for more details.

How efficient are these classes?
Most of these classes use the most efficient implementations I know of for general-purpose concurrent programming, yet also try to be conservative about differences across common JVMs, and to minimize surprising limitations and side-effects. This is always a bit of a trade-off though. Some could be made more efficient at the cost of supporting fewer operations, relying on properties of particular JVMs, or having more usage constraints. Conversely some could support more contexts or operations, or simpler usage, at the cost of efficiency.

You will almost surely trade off some cost in efficiency for the flexibility of using Syncs and classes built out of them rather than built-in synchronized method/block locks. On some JVMs the cost is very low. (You can check approximate impact using SynchronizationTimer.) But, while Java VMs are getting much faster about synchronized locks, most of the classes in this package rely heavily on wait/notify and interruption mechanics, which are not currently as heavily optimized. (Also, they seem to be subject to more variation in behavior than other Java constructs.) Class implementations generally ignore the fact that the JVM overhead for these operations might be slower than you'd wish they were on some JVMs.

Are there any programming errors?
I don't believe so. Please try to prove me wrong. If you are the first person to discover a particular coding error in a current release, I'll send you a free copy of my CPJ book. Also, I would greatly appreciate receiving any sample applications that can help serve as useful tests, so as to build up a more extensive test suite.

Should I worry about the use of volatile in these classes?
Many JVMs are known not to correctly implement the JLS spec (either the original or the upcoming revision) for volatile fields. However, volatiles are used in conservative ways in this package, that don't encounter problems at least on recent Sun and IBM JVMs.

Why do classes declare practically all internal matters as protected?
While probably 99% of the uses of these classes should just treat them as black-box utility components, these classes are intended to be extensible, to allow more specialized synchronization control to be customized for different applications. However, it takes a lot of expertise to extend or modify most of them via subclassing. If you do try to extend, consider first running javadoc on these classes with switches that generate documentation for non-public classes, methods, and fields. Also, if you encounter problems making subclasses due to inflexibility in base classes, I'd like to hear about it, so I can try to come up with a better factoring.

Why aren't most classes Serializable?
I don't know what to about this. On one hand, it wouldn't make sense in a lot of contexts to serialize, say, a Semaphore. On the other hand, maybe it ought not be precluded. Opinions welcome. One suggestion is to only declare as serializable those classes specifically designed to work with other persistent or distributed concurrency control frameworks. (No such classes currently exist.)

Why didn't using ReadWriteLocks instead of plain synchronization speed up my program?
ReadWriteLocks have more overhead than do synchronized methods or blocks. They pay off only when the code being protected by the locks is time-consuming, and when readers outnumber writers, so the increased concurrency outweighs the increased bookkeeping. (They are also sometimes of use in avoiding deadlock.) Special-purpose data structures such as the Concurrent hash tables in this package have far less overhead, and typically much better performance than placing ReadWriteLocks around most sequential data structures.

Are instances of these classes externally lockable -- that is, can I control object x via synchronized(x) { ... } ?
Not necessarily. Some objects rely on their own synchronization locks, some rely on internal locks, some rely on other synchronization objects. So in general, you cannot know the effect of synchronized(x) and so probably ought never use it.

Why do I get strict alternation of producer and consumer threads when using buffered channels such as BoundedBuffer?
Although it depends on details of JVM scheduling policies, this is the most likely result when producer and consumer actions both take about the same amount of time to process, since both put and take operations signal waiting threads. The point of buffering is to decouple producers and consumers when one or the other is bursty, so temporarily gets ahead or behind its average rate. (If the average rates of producers and consumers are not approximately equal, buffering is not of much use.) While it again relies on JVM details, unbounded buffers (for example LinkedQueue) typically do not result in alternation, allowing producers to get arbitrarily ahead of consumers, at the expense of potential resource exhaustion.

Why aren't there timeout methods supporting nanosecond arguments?
Because most JVMs only time to millisecond accuracy (at best) anyway. If this changes, nanosecond versions could be added.

Why is the package named EDU..., not edu?
I've been using the initially-recommended upper-case EDU prefix for a long time for my packages. It would take a lot of busy-work to convert everything to the now-recommended practice of using lower-case. Someday I will do this though.

Why do you use those ugly underscores?!
Because otherwise I tend to make coding mistakes surrounding instance variables versus local variables. See my Sample Java Coding Standard. But I think I've decided to reform :-) Newer classes use a more JDK-like set of conventions.

Why don't you supply Ant build scripts? Or Jar files? Or rearrange into separate src/doc/lib directories? Or CVS? Or ...?
There are too many different ways people would like to use this package for me to keep up with. So I release it in a simple way that should be very easy to adapt to all sorts of different needs and conventions.

Is this code in any way tied to Sun JDK releases?
No. The acknowlegdment to Sun Labs in headers recognizes their generous donations of equipment and release time support that help make this work possible. But this software is not in any way tied to Sun. However, work is underway to create a JSR with the goal of including a similar package in a future JDK release.

Can I use this code in commercial products?
Yes. Many people appear to do so.

Do I need a license to use it? Can I get one?
No!

Can I get commercial support for this package?
I don't know of any place to get it. I can't think of any technical reason that you'd want it.

Sources

History