Re: thread wait

From:
Thomas Hawtin <usenet@tackline.plus.com>
Newsgroups:
comp.lang.java.programmer
Date:
Mon, 13 Aug 2007 00:20:50 +0100
Message-ID:
<46bf935d$0$1628$ed2619ec@ptn-nntp-reader02.plus.net>
korcs wrote:

I have a problem with suspending a thread.


It's really difficult to see what is happening with an incomplete
example. As Patricia mentioned, try to come up with a small but complete
program to demonstrate the problem.

Anyway, my thoughts on what you have selected:

As suspend() has deprecated I am trying to use the wait() - notify()
combination, but after the thread pauses it won't resume again.


Yes, look at the explanation. suspend can pause a thread whilst it is
holding a lock that you may not even be aware (perhaps in some library,
perhaps loading classes).

     class startListener implements ActionListener {

Class names should have initial caps.

Tabs work badly. Particularly in Usenet. My reader is displaying you
post indented inconsistently. Quoting doesn't help either.

             if(!clock.isAlive()) {

                clock.start();

So clock is a thread. You can only start threads once. isAlive isn't a
good check. There is also a potential race from between isAlive, start
and the thread actually starting.

             threadsSuspended = true;

Technically this should be in a synchronised block matching reading of
the variable (you can use volatile, but that is very difficult to get
right).

     public void run()
    {

I'd suggest using an inner class, even if it just calls a private method
on the outer class.

Note that 'this' within an inner class refers to inner instance, not the
outer. Even Brian Goetz managed to publish a book with this mistake.

                 this.putText(new Integer(counter).toString());

I don't know the implementation of putText, but note that Swing
components should always be accessed on the AWT Event Dispatch Thread (EDT).

Integer.toString(counter) would be a better way of expressing that (or
String.valueOf(counter) if you must).

                 Thread.sleep(clock_period);
                synchronized(this) {
                    while (threadsSuspended)
                        wait();
                }

Are you sleeping or waiting? (Unless it's a bug demonstration, I always
prefer timed wait to sleep as you can quite a wait without having to use
interrupt (which has some problems associated with it)).

         } // while

        } catch (InterruptedException e) {

        }

Yay! Thread interrupts that actually interrupts rather than being
dropped and carrying on as normal.

         return;

Unnecessary.

Tom Hawtin

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