- All Implemented Interfaces:
Serializable
,Future<V>
- Direct Known Subclasses:
CountedCompleter
,RecursiveAction
,RecursiveTask
ForkJoinPool
.
A ForkJoinTask
is a thread-like entity that is much
lighter weight than a normal thread. Huge numbers of tasks and
subtasks may be hosted by a small number of actual threads in a
ForkJoinPool, at the price of some usage limitations.
A "main" ForkJoinTask
begins execution when it is
explicitly submitted to a ForkJoinPool
, or, if not already
engaged in a ForkJoin computation, commenced in the ForkJoinPool.commonPool()
via fork()
, invoke()
, or
related methods. Once started, it will usually in turn start other
subtasks. As indicated by the name of this class, many programs
using ForkJoinTask
employ only methods fork()
and
join()
, or derivatives such as invokeAll
. However, this class also
provides a number of other methods that can come into play in
advanced usages, as well as extension mechanics that allow support
of new forms of fork/join processing.
A ForkJoinTask
is a lightweight form of Future
.
The efficiency of ForkJoinTask
s stems from a set of
restrictions (that are only partially statically enforceable)
reflecting their main use as computational tasks calculating pure
functions or operating on purely isolated objects. The primary
coordination mechanisms are fork()
, that arranges
asynchronous execution, and join()
, that doesn't proceed
until the task's result has been computed. Computations should
ideally avoid synchronized
methods or blocks, and should
minimize other blocking synchronization apart from joining other
tasks or using synchronizers such as Phasers that are advertised to
cooperate with fork/join scheduling. Subdividable tasks should also
not perform blocking I/O, and should ideally access variables that
are completely independent of those accessed by other running
tasks. These guidelines are loosely enforced by not permitting
checked exceptions such as IOExceptions
to be
thrown. However, computations may still encounter unchecked
exceptions, that are rethrown to callers attempting to join
them. These exceptions may additionally include RejectedExecutionException
stemming from internal resource
exhaustion, such as failure to allocate internal task
queues. Rethrown exceptions behave in the same way as regular
exceptions, but, when possible, contain stack traces (as displayed
for example using ex.printStackTrace()
) of both the thread
that initiated the computation as well as the thread actually
encountering the exception; minimally only the latter.
It is possible to define and use ForkJoinTasks that may block,
but doing so requires three further considerations: (1) Completion
of few if any other tasks should be dependent on a task
that blocks on external synchronization or I/O. Event-style async
tasks that are never joined (for example, those subclassing CountedCompleter
) often fall into this category. (2) To minimize
resource impact, tasks should be small; ideally performing only the
(possibly) blocking action. (3) Unless the ForkJoinPool.ManagedBlocker
API is used, or the number of possibly
blocked tasks is known to be less than the pool's ForkJoinPool.getParallelism()
level, the pool cannot guarantee that
enough threads will be available to ensure progress or good
performance.
The primary method for awaiting completion and extracting
results of a task is join()
, but there are several variants:
The Future.get()
methods support interruptible and/or timed
waits for completion and report results using Future
conventions. Method invoke()
is semantically
equivalent to fork(); join()
but always attempts to begin
execution in the current thread. The "quiet" forms of
these methods do not extract results or report exceptions. These
may be useful when a set of tasks are being executed, and you need
to delay processing of results or exceptions until all complete.
Method invokeAll
(available in multiple versions)
performs the most common form of parallel invocation: forking a set
of tasks and joining them all.
In the most typical usages, a fork-join pair act like a call
(fork) and return (join) from a parallel recursive function. As is
the case with other forms of recursive calls, returns (joins)
should be performed innermost-first. For example, a.fork();
b.fork(); b.join(); a.join();
is likely to be substantially more
efficient than joining a
before b
.
The execution status of tasks may be queried at several levels
of detail: isDone()
is true if a task completed in any way
(including the case where a task was cancelled without executing);
isCompletedNormally()
is true if a task completed without
cancellation or encountering an exception; isCancelled()
is
true if the task was cancelled (in which case getException()
returns a CancellationException
); and
isCompletedAbnormally()
is true if a task was either
cancelled or encountered an exception, in which case getException()
will return either the encountered exception or
CancellationException
.
The ForkJoinTask class is not usually directly subclassed.
Instead, you subclass one of the abstract classes that support a
particular style of fork/join processing, typically RecursiveAction
for most computations that do not return results,
RecursiveTask
for those that do, and CountedCompleter
for those in which completed actions trigger
other actions. Normally, a concrete ForkJoinTask subclass declares
fields comprising its parameters, established in a constructor, and
then defines a compute
method that somehow uses the control
methods supplied by this base class.
Method join()
and its variants are appropriate for use
only when completion dependencies are acyclic; that is, the
parallel computation can be described as a directed acyclic graph
(DAG). Otherwise, executions may encounter a form of deadlock as
tasks cyclically wait for each other. However, this framework
supports other methods and techniques (for example the use of
Phaser
, helpQuiesce()
, and complete(V)
) that
may be of use in constructing custom subclasses for problems that
are not statically structured as DAGs. To support such usages, a
ForkJoinTask may be atomically tagged with a short
value using setForkJoinTaskTag(short)
or compareAndSetForkJoinTaskTag(short, short)
and checked using getForkJoinTaskTag()
. The ForkJoinTask implementation does not use
these protected
methods or tags for any purpose, but they
may be of use in the construction of specialized subclasses. For
example, parallel graph traversals can use the supplied methods to
avoid revisiting nodes/tasks that have already been processed.
(Method names for tagging are bulky in part to encourage definition
of methods that reflect their usage patterns.)
Most base support methods are final
, to prevent
overriding of implementations that are intrinsically tied to the
underlying lightweight task scheduling framework. Developers
creating new basic styles of fork/join processing should minimally
implement protected
methods exec()
, setRawResult(V)
, and getRawResult()
, while also introducing
an abstract computational method that can be implemented in its
subclasses, possibly relying on other protected
methods
provided by this class.
ForkJoinTasks should perform relatively small amounts of computation. Large tasks should be split into smaller subtasks, usually via recursive decomposition. As a very rough rule of thumb, a task should perform more than 100 and less than 10000 basic computational steps, and should avoid indefinite looping. If tasks are too big, then parallelism cannot improve throughput. If too small, then memory and internal task maintenance overhead may overwhelm processing.
This class provides adapt
methods for Runnable
and Callable
, that may be of use when mixing execution of
ForkJoinTasks
with other kinds of tasks. When all tasks are
of this form, consider using a pool constructed in asyncMode.
ForkJoinTasks are Serializable
, which enables them to be
used in extensions such as remote execution frameworks. It is
sensible to serialize tasks only before or after, but not during,
execution. Serialization is not relied on during execution itself.
- Since:
- 1.7
- See Also:
- Serialized Form
-
Constructor Summary
-
Method Summary
Modifier and TypeMethodDescriptionstatic ForkJoinTask<?>
Returns a newForkJoinTask
that performs therun
method of the givenRunnable
as its action, and returns a null result uponjoin()
.static <T> ForkJoinTask<T>
Returns a newForkJoinTask
that performs therun
method of the givenRunnable
as its action, and returns the given result uponjoin()
.static <T> ForkJoinTask<T>
Returns a newForkJoinTask
that performs thecall
method of the givenCallable
as its action, and returns its result uponjoin()
, translating any checked exceptions encountered intoRuntimeException
.boolean
cancel(boolean mayInterruptIfRunning)
Attempts to cancel execution of this task.boolean
compareAndSetForkJoinTaskTag(short expect, short update)
Atomically conditionally sets the tag value for this task.void
Completes this task, and if not already aborted or cancelled, returning the given value as the result of subsequent invocations ofjoin
and related operations.void
Completes this task abnormally, and if not already aborted or cancelled, causes it to throw the given exception uponjoin
and related operations.protected abstract boolean
exec()
Immediately performs the base action of this task and returns true if, upon return from this method, this task is guaranteed to have completed.fork()
Arranges to asynchronously execute this task in the pool the current task is running in, if applicable, or using theForkJoinPool.commonPool()
if notinForkJoinPool()
.get()
Waits if necessary for the computation to complete, and then retrieves its result.Waits if necessary for at most the given time for the computation to complete, and then retrieves its result, if available.Returns the exception thrown by the base computation, or aCancellationException
if cancelled, ornull
if none or if the method has not yet completed.short
Returns the tag for this task.static ForkJoinPool
getPool()
Returns the pool hosting the current thread, ornull
if the current thread is executing outside of any ForkJoinPool.static int
Returns an estimate of the number of tasks that have been forked by the current worker thread but not yet executed.abstract V
Returns the result that would be returned byjoin()
, even if this task completed abnormally, ornull
if this task is not known to have been completed.static int
Returns an estimate of how many more locally queued tasks are held by the current worker thread than there are other worker threads that might steal them, or zero if this thread is not operating in a ForkJoinPool.static void
Possibly executes tasks until the pool hosting the current task is quiescent.static boolean
Returnstrue
if the current thread is aForkJoinWorkerThread
executing as a ForkJoinPool computation.invoke()
Commences performing this task, awaits its completion if necessary, and returns its result, or throws an (unchecked)RuntimeException
orError
if the underlying computation did so.static <T extends ForkJoinTask<?>>
Collection<T>invokeAll(Collection<T> tasks)
Forks all tasks in the specified collection, returning whenisDone
holds for each task or an (unchecked) exception is encountered, in which case the exception is rethrown.static void
invokeAll(ForkJoinTask<?>... tasks)
Forks the given tasks, returning whenisDone
holds for each task or an (unchecked) exception is encountered, in which case the exception is rethrown.static void
invokeAll(ForkJoinTask<?> t1, ForkJoinTask<?> t2)
Forks the given tasks, returning whenisDone
holds for each task or an (unchecked) exception is encountered, in which case the exception is rethrown.boolean
Returnstrue
if this task was cancelled before it completed normally.boolean
Returnstrue
if this task threw an exception or was cancelled.boolean
Returnstrue
if this task completed without throwing an exception and was not cancelled.boolean
isDone()
Returnstrue
if this task completed.join()
Returns the result of the computation when it is done.protected static ForkJoinTask<?>
Returns, but does not unschedule or execute, a task queued by the current thread but not yet executed, if one is immediately available.protected static ForkJoinTask<?>
Unschedules and returns, without executing, the next task queued by the current thread but not yet executed, if the current thread is operating in a ForkJoinPool.protected static ForkJoinTask<?>
If the current thread is operating in a ForkJoinPool, unschedules and returns, without executing, a task externally submitted to the pool, if one is available.protected static ForkJoinTask<?>
pollTask()
If the current thread is operating in a ForkJoinPool, unschedules and returns, without executing, the next task queued by the current thread but not yet executed, if one is available, or if not available, a task that was forked by some other thread, if available.void
Completes this task normally without setting a value.void
Commences performing this task and awaits its completion if necessary, without returning its result or throwing its exception.void
Joins this task, without returning its result or throwing its exception.void
Resets the internal bookkeeping state of this task, allowing a subsequentfork
.short
setForkJoinTaskTag(short newValue)
Atomically sets the tag value for this task and returns the old value.protected abstract void
setRawResult(V value)
Forces the given value to be returned as a result.boolean
Tries to unschedule this task for execution.
-
Constructor Details
-
ForkJoinTask
public ForkJoinTask()Constructor for subclasses to call.
-
-
Method Details
-
fork
Arranges to asynchronously execute this task in the pool the current task is running in, if applicable, or using theForkJoinPool.commonPool()
if notinForkJoinPool()
. While it is not necessarily enforced, it is a usage error to fork a task more than once unless it has completed and been reinitialized. Subsequent modifications to the state of this task or any data it operates on are not necessarily consistently observable by any thread other than the one executing it unless preceded by a call tojoin()
or related methods, or a call toisDone()
returningtrue
.- Returns:
this
, to simplify usage
-
join
Returns the result of the computation when it is done. This method differs fromget()
in that abnormal completion results inRuntimeException
orError
, notExecutionException
, and that interrupts of the calling thread do not cause the method to abruptly return by throwingInterruptedException
.- Returns:
- the computed result
-
invoke
Commences performing this task, awaits its completion if necessary, and returns its result, or throws an (unchecked)RuntimeException
orError
if the underlying computation did so.- Returns:
- the computed result
-
invokeAll
Forks the given tasks, returning whenisDone
holds for each task or an (unchecked) exception is encountered, in which case the exception is rethrown. If more than one task encounters an exception, then this method throws any one of these exceptions. If any task encounters an exception, the other may be cancelled. However, the execution status of individual tasks is not guaranteed upon exceptional return. The status of each task may be obtained usinggetException()
and related methods to check if they have been cancelled, completed normally or exceptionally, or left unprocessed.- Parameters:
t1
- the first taskt2
- the second task- Throws:
NullPointerException
- if any task is null
-
invokeAll
Forks the given tasks, returning whenisDone
holds for each task or an (unchecked) exception is encountered, in which case the exception is rethrown. If more than one task encounters an exception, then this method throws any one of these exceptions. If any task encounters an exception, others may be cancelled. However, the execution status of individual tasks is not guaranteed upon exceptional return. The status of each task may be obtained usinggetException()
and related methods to check if they have been cancelled, completed normally or exceptionally, or left unprocessed.- Parameters:
tasks
- the tasks- Throws:
NullPointerException
- if any task is null
-
invokeAll
Forks all tasks in the specified collection, returning whenisDone
holds for each task or an (unchecked) exception is encountered, in which case the exception is rethrown. If more than one task encounters an exception, then this method throws any one of these exceptions. If any task encounters an exception, others may be cancelled. However, the execution status of individual tasks is not guaranteed upon exceptional return. The status of each task may be obtained usinggetException()
and related methods to check if they have been cancelled, completed normally or exceptionally, or left unprocessed.- Type Parameters:
T
- the type of the values returned from the tasks- Parameters:
tasks
- the collection of tasks- Returns:
- the tasks argument, to simplify usage
- Throws:
NullPointerException
- if tasks or any element are null
-
cancel
public boolean cancel(boolean mayInterruptIfRunning)Attempts to cancel execution of this task. This attempt will fail if the task has already completed or could not be cancelled for some other reason. If successful, and this task has not started whencancel
is called, execution of this task is suppressed. After this method returns successfully, unless there is an intervening call toreinitialize()
, subsequent calls toisCancelled()
,isDone()
, andcancel
will returntrue
and calls tojoin()
and related methods will result inCancellationException
.This method may be overridden in subclasses, but if so, must still ensure that these properties hold. In particular, the
cancel
method itself must not throw exceptions.This method is designed to be invoked by other tasks. To terminate the current task, you can just return or throw an unchecked exception from its computation method, or invoke
completeExceptionally(Throwable)
. -
isDone
public final boolean isDone()Description copied from interface:Future
Returnstrue
if this task completed. Completion may be due to normal termination, an exception, or cancellation -- in all of these cases, this method will returntrue
. -
isCancelled
public final boolean isCancelled()Description copied from interface:Future
Returnstrue
if this task was cancelled before it completed normally.- Specified by:
isCancelled
in interfaceFuture<V>
- Returns:
true
if this task was cancelled before it completed
-
isCompletedAbnormally
public final boolean isCompletedAbnormally()Returnstrue
if this task threw an exception or was cancelled.- Returns:
true
if this task threw an exception or was cancelled
-
isCompletedNormally
public final boolean isCompletedNormally()Returnstrue
if this task completed without throwing an exception and was not cancelled.- Returns:
true
if this task completed without throwing an exception and was not cancelled
-
getException
Returns the exception thrown by the base computation, or aCancellationException
if cancelled, ornull
if none or if the method has not yet completed.- Returns:
- the exception, or
null
if none
-
completeExceptionally
Completes this task abnormally, and if not already aborted or cancelled, causes it to throw the given exception uponjoin
and related operations. This method may be used to induce exceptions in asynchronous tasks, or to force completion of tasks that would not otherwise complete. Its use in other situations is discouraged. This method is overridable, but overridden versions must invokesuper
implementation to maintain guarantees.- Parameters:
ex
- the exception to throw. If this exception is not aRuntimeException
orError
, the actual exception thrown will be aRuntimeException
with causeex
.
-
complete
Completes this task, and if not already aborted or cancelled, returning the given value as the result of subsequent invocations ofjoin
and related operations. This method may be used to provide results for asynchronous tasks, or to provide alternative handling for tasks that would not otherwise complete normally. Its use in other situations is discouraged. This method is overridable, but overridden versions must invokesuper
implementation to maintain guarantees.- Parameters:
value
- the result value for this task
-
quietlyComplete
public final void quietlyComplete()Completes this task normally without setting a value. The most recent value established bysetRawResult(V)
(ornull
by default) will be returned as the result of subsequent invocations ofjoin
and related operations.- Since:
- 1.8
-
get
Waits if necessary for the computation to complete, and then retrieves its result.- Specified by:
get
in interfaceFuture<V>
- Returns:
- the computed result
- Throws:
CancellationException
- if the computation was cancelledExecutionException
- if the computation threw an exceptionInterruptedException
- if the current thread is not a member of a ForkJoinPool and was interrupted while waiting
-
get
public final V get(long timeout, TimeUnit unit) throws InterruptedException, ExecutionException, TimeoutExceptionWaits if necessary for at most the given time for the computation to complete, and then retrieves its result, if available.- Specified by:
get
in interfaceFuture<V>
- Parameters:
timeout
- the maximum time to waitunit
- the time unit of the timeout argument- Returns:
- the computed result
- Throws:
CancellationException
- if the computation was cancelledExecutionException
- if the computation threw an exceptionInterruptedException
- if the current thread is not a member of a ForkJoinPool and was interrupted while waitingTimeoutException
- if the wait timed out
-
quietlyJoin
public final void quietlyJoin()Joins this task, without returning its result or throwing its exception. This method may be useful when processing collections of tasks when some have been cancelled or otherwise known to have aborted. -
quietlyInvoke
public final void quietlyInvoke()Commences performing this task and awaits its completion if necessary, without returning its result or throwing its exception. -
helpQuiesce
public static void helpQuiesce()Possibly executes tasks until the pool hosting the current task is quiescent. This method may be of use in designs in which many tasks are forked, but none are explicitly joined, instead executing them until all are processed. -
reinitialize
public void reinitialize()Resets the internal bookkeeping state of this task, allowing a subsequentfork
. This method allows repeated reuse of this task, but only if reuse occurs when this task has either never been forked, or has been forked, then completed and all outstanding joins of this task have also completed. Effects under any other usage conditions are not guaranteed. This method may be useful when executing pre-constructed trees of subtasks in loops.Upon completion of this method,
isDone()
reportsfalse
, andgetException()
reportsnull
. However, the value returned bygetRawResult
is unaffected. To clear this value, you can invokesetRawResult(null)
. -
getPool
Returns the pool hosting the current thread, ornull
if the current thread is executing outside of any ForkJoinPool.This method returns
null
if and only ifinForkJoinPool()
returnsfalse
.- Returns:
- the pool, or
null
if none
-
inForkJoinPool
public static boolean inForkJoinPool()Returnstrue
if the current thread is aForkJoinWorkerThread
executing as a ForkJoinPool computation.- Returns:
true
if the current thread is aForkJoinWorkerThread
executing as a ForkJoinPool computation, orfalse
otherwise
-
tryUnfork
public boolean tryUnfork()Tries to unschedule this task for execution. This method will typically (but is not guaranteed to) succeed if this task is the most recently forked task by the current thread, and has not commenced executing in another thread. This method may be useful when arranging alternative local processing of tasks that could have been, but were not, stolen.- Returns:
true
if unforked
-
getQueuedTaskCount
public static int getQueuedTaskCount()Returns an estimate of the number of tasks that have been forked by the current worker thread but not yet executed. This value may be useful for heuristic decisions about whether to fork other tasks.- Returns:
- the number of tasks
-
getSurplusQueuedTaskCount
public static int getSurplusQueuedTaskCount()Returns an estimate of how many more locally queued tasks are held by the current worker thread than there are other worker threads that might steal them, or zero if this thread is not operating in a ForkJoinPool. This value may be useful for heuristic decisions about whether to fork other tasks. In many usages of ForkJoinTasks, at steady state, each worker should aim to maintain a small constant surplus (for example, 3) of tasks, and to process computations locally if this threshold is exceeded.- Returns:
- the surplus number of tasks, which may be negative
-
getRawResult
Returns the result that would be returned byjoin()
, even if this task completed abnormally, ornull
if this task is not known to have been completed. This method is designed to aid debugging, as well as to support extensions. Its use in any other context is discouraged.- Returns:
- the result, or
null
if not completed
-
setRawResult
Forces the given value to be returned as a result. This method is designed to support extensions, and should not in general be called otherwise.- Parameters:
value
- the value
-
exec
protected abstract boolean exec()Immediately performs the base action of this task and returns true if, upon return from this method, this task is guaranteed to have completed. This method may return false otherwise, to indicate that this task is not necessarily complete (or is not known to be complete), for example in asynchronous actions that require explicit invocations of completion methods. This method may also throw an (unchecked) exception to indicate abnormal exit. This method is designed to support extensions, and should not in general be called otherwise.- Returns:
true
if this task is known to have completed normally
-
peekNextLocalTask
Returns, but does not unschedule or execute, a task queued by the current thread but not yet executed, if one is immediately available. There is no guarantee that this task will actually be polled or executed next. Conversely, this method may return null even if a task exists but cannot be accessed without contention with other threads. This method is designed primarily to support extensions, and is unlikely to be useful otherwise.- Returns:
- the next task, or
null
if none are available
-
pollNextLocalTask
Unschedules and returns, without executing, the next task queued by the current thread but not yet executed, if the current thread is operating in a ForkJoinPool. This method is designed primarily to support extensions, and is unlikely to be useful otherwise.- Returns:
- the next task, or
null
if none are available
-
pollTask
If the current thread is operating in a ForkJoinPool, unschedules and returns, without executing, the next task queued by the current thread but not yet executed, if one is available, or if not available, a task that was forked by some other thread, if available. Availability may be transient, so anull
result does not necessarily imply quiescence of the pool this task is operating in. This method is designed primarily to support extensions, and is unlikely to be useful otherwise.- Returns:
- a task, or
null
if none are available
-
pollSubmission
If the current thread is operating in a ForkJoinPool, unschedules and returns, without executing, a task externally submitted to the pool, if one is available. Availability may be transient, so anull
result does not necessarily imply quiescence of the pool. This method is designed primarily to support extensions, and is unlikely to be useful otherwise.- Returns:
- a task, or
null
if none are available - Since:
- 9
-
getForkJoinTaskTag
public final short getForkJoinTaskTag()Returns the tag for this task.- Returns:
- the tag for this task
- Since:
- 1.8
-
setForkJoinTaskTag
public final short setForkJoinTaskTag(short newValue)Atomically sets the tag value for this task and returns the old value.- Parameters:
newValue
- the new tag value- Returns:
- the previous value of the tag
- Since:
- 1.8
-
compareAndSetForkJoinTaskTag
public final boolean compareAndSetForkJoinTaskTag(short expect, short update)Atomically conditionally sets the tag value for this task. Among other applications, tags can be used as visit markers in tasks operating on graphs, as in methods that check:if (task.compareAndSetForkJoinTaskTag((short)0, (short)1))
before processing, otherwise exiting because the node has already been visited.- Parameters:
expect
- the expected tag valueupdate
- the new tag value- Returns:
true
if successful; i.e., the current value was equal toexpect
and was changed toupdate
.- Since:
- 1.8
-
adapt
Returns a newForkJoinTask
that performs therun
method of the givenRunnable
as its action, and returns a null result uponjoin()
.- Parameters:
runnable
- the runnable action- Returns:
- the task
-
adapt
Returns a newForkJoinTask
that performs therun
method of the givenRunnable
as its action, and returns the given result uponjoin()
.- Type Parameters:
T
- the type of the result- Parameters:
runnable
- the runnable actionresult
- the result upon completion- Returns:
- the task
-
adapt
Returns a newForkJoinTask
that performs thecall
method of the givenCallable
as its action, and returns its result uponjoin()
, translating any checked exceptions encountered intoRuntimeException
.- Type Parameters:
T
- the type of the callable's result- Parameters:
callable
- the callable action- Returns:
- the task
-