I have a friend who says, the use of AtomicBoolean for synchronization of startup / shutdown as follows is ineffective:
public void startup() {
if (started.compareAndSet(false, true)) {
... startup code
}
}
He says AtomicBoolean needs to be inside of a loop to be threadsafe. Why can't I use AtomicBoolean outside of a loop? What is the rationale behind this?
needs an
AtomicBoolean - A boolean value that may be updated atomically. See
the java.util.concurrent.atomic package specification for description
of the properties of atomic variables. An AtomicBoolean is used in
applications such as atomically updated flags, and cannot be used as a
replacement for a Boolean.
by no way it is efficient only in loop, it is efficient when you need to change it atomically, for example for locks. got nothing to do with loops
You might want to provide some more context. For example, if your startup code initializes some state and threads that fail the compare and swap then try to use that state, then you could have a race. Nothing is forcing the other threads to wait until the initialization is finished.
Related
I've got a base class I'm using with MSpec which provides convenience methods around AutoMock:
public abstract class SubjectBuilderContext
{
static AutoMock _container;
protected static ISubjectBuilderConfigurationContext<T> BuildSubject<T>()
{
_container = AutoMock.GetLoose();
return new SubjectBuilderConfigurationContext<T>(_container);
}
protected static Mock<TDouble> GetMock<TDouble>()
where TDouble : class
{
return _container.Mock<TDouble>();
}
}
Occasionally, I'm seeing an exception happen when attempting to retrieve a Mock like so:
It should_store_the_receipt = () => GetMock<IFileService>().Verify(f => f.SaveFileAsync(Moq.It.IsAny<byte[]>(), Moq.It.IsAny<string>()), Times.Once());
Here's the exception:
System.ObjectDisposedExceptionInstances cannot be resolved and nested
lifetimes cannot be created from this LifetimeScope as it has already
been disposed.
I'm guessing it has something to do with the way MSpec runs the tests (via reflection) and that there's a period of time when nothing actively has references to any of the objects in the underlying lifetime scope being used by AutoMock which causes the lifetimescope to get disposed. What's going on here, and is there some simple way for me to keep it from happening?
The AutoMock lifetime scope from Autofac.Extras.Moq is disposed when the mock itself is disposed. If you're getting this, it means the AutoMock instance has been disposed or has otherwise lost scope and the GC has cleaned it up.
Given that, there are a few possibilities.
The first possibility is that you've got some potential threading challenges around async method calls. Looking at the method that's being mocked, I see you're verifying the call to a SaveFileAsync method. However, I don't see any async related code in there, and I'm not entirely sure when/how the tests running are calling it given the currently posted code, but if there is a situation where an async call causes the test to run on one thread while the AutoMock loses scope or otherwise gets killed on the other thread, I could see this happening.
The second possibility is the mix of static and instance items in the context. You are storing the AutoMock as a static, but it appears the context class in which it resides is a base class that is intended to supply instance-related values. If two tests run in parallel, for example, the first test will set the AutoMock to what it thinks it needs, then the second test will overwrite the AutoMock and the first will go out of scope, disposing the scope.
The third possibility is multiple calls to BuildSubject<T> in one test. The call to BuildSubject<T> initializes the AutoMock. If you call that multiple times in one test, despite changing the T type, you'll be stomping the AutoMock each time and the associated lifetime scope will be disposed.
The fourth possibility is a test ordering problem. If you only see it sometimes but not other times, it could be that certain tests inadvertently assume that some setup, like the call to BuildSubject<T>, has already been done; while other tests may not make that assumption and will call BuildSubject<T> themselves. Depending on the order the tests run, you may sometimes get lucky and not see the exception, but other times you may run into the problem where BuildSubject<T> gets called at just the wrong time and causes you pain.
I have a Dart js-interop callback that in turn takes a javascript callback as an argument. The dart callback implementation looks like this:
void callBackToDartCode(String query, js.FunctionProxy completionCallback) {
js.context.completionCallback = completionCallback;
doSomethingAscyn(query).then(
(result) {
// hand the query result back to the javascript code
js.context.completionCallback(js.map(result));
});
This works. The key to making this work is to save the FunctionProxy in the js.context so that it is available when it comes time to execute it in the async "then" method. This line of code is important:
js.context.completionCallback = completionCallback;
If that's not done then the completeCallback is not retained and hence cannot be called when the async operation completes.
I have not seen examples like this and I am not sure I have really done this properly.
It raises questions:
How do I disassociate "completeCallback" from js.context after I've called it? Does it remain associated with js.context forever?
It appears there will be conflicting use of the name "completionCallback" within js.context if multiple async operations are in progress at the same time. That strikes me as a common problem. Does js-interop have a way to deal with that or is it my job to manage that?
With js-interop all proxies are scoped to prevent memory leaks. This means that Proxy will lost its JS object reference at the end of its associated scope. If scoped((){}) function is not use explicitely a lazy scope is initialized the first time an interop operation is done and the scope is automatically closed at the end of the current event loop. If you want to make a Proxy to live longer than its associated scope, you have to retain it. This can be done with js.retain(proxy). Once your proxy is no longer needed, you can release it with js.release(proxy).
Thus your code should be :
void callBackToDartCode(String query, js.FunctionProxy completionCallback) {
js.retain(completionCallback);
doSomethingAscyn(query).then(
(result) {
// hand the query result back to the javascript code
completionCallback(js.map(result));
// completionCallback is no longer used
js.release(completionCallback);
});
}
About your question about disassociate "completeCallback" from js.context you could have done it with js.deleteProperty(js.context, "completeCallback")
I would like to know the best practice to implement the follow scenarios.
public class MainWindow : Window
{
public void MainWorkflow()
{
// initiate a work-thread to run LongCompute
// when LongCompute finishes, update the corresponding GUI
// for example, change the statusbar as "Computation is done"
}
private void LongCompute()
{
// a 2-minute computation and then update member variables
// after it finishes. I expect the main thread to use the
// updated member variables to update GUI later
}
}
I am looking for a concrete good example to illustrate the best practice for this task.
As we know, the work-thread should not be used to update the GUI because GUI should be updated by the thread which created them. Also, I knew the following two modes:
Case I> The main thread waits for the worker thread and then update the GUI after than.
For example,
we can use the WaitOne method defined in AutoResetEvent in this case and it will be triggered by the Set method. But this is not a good way.
Case II> Set a callback function for the worker thread, however, the callback function is still called in the work thread which is not good for manipulating the GUI.
As #Jeff said in the comments, use a BackgroundWorker for this. You specify what function to call on the background thread, and another to call when the background work is done.
I am getting this error everytime my Observers are traversed.
#Override
public void notifyObservers(ModelViewInterface model) {
for(Observer<ModelViewInterface> o : this.observers)
o.notify(model);
}
GWT does not have threads, so it is not a synchronization issue.
It seems to happen after I press a button, any ideas of how to avoid this error?
From the javadoc of ConcurrentModificationException:
Note that this exception does not always indicate that an object has been concurrently modified by a different thread. If a single thread issues a sequence of method invocations that violates the contract of an object, the object may throw this exception. For example, if a thread modifies a collection directly while it is iterating over the collection with a fail-fast iterator, the iterator will throw this exception.
So in your case, it seems that o.notify(model) modifies this.observers - directly or indirectly. This is a common phenomenon when modifying the collection you're iterating over.
To avoid concurrent modification, you can operate on a copy of the collection like this:
for(Observer<ModelViewInterface> o :
new ArrayList<ModelViewInterface>(this.observers)) {
o.notify(model);
}
However, sometimes this is not what you want - the current behaviour of o.notify could also indicate a bug.
I have a lookup table (LUT) of thousands integers that I use on a fair amount of requests to compute stuff based on what was fetched from database.
If I simply create a standard singleton to hold the LUT, is it automatically persisted between requests or do I specifically need to push it to the Application state?
If they are automatically persisted, then what is the difference storing them with the Application state?
How would a correct singleton implementation look like? It doesn't need to be lazily initialized, but it needs to be thread-safe (thousands of theoretical users per server instance) and have good performance.
EDIT: Jon Skeet's 4th version looks promising http://csharpindepth.com/Articles/General/Singleton.aspx
public sealed class Singleton
{
static readonly Singleton instance=new Singleton();
// Explicit static constructor to tell C# compiler
// not to mark type as beforefieldinit
static Singleton()
{
}
Singleton()
{
}
public static Singleton Instance
{
get
{
return instance;
}
}
// randomguy's specific stuff. Does this look good to you?
private int[] lut = new int[5000];
public int Compute(Product p) {
return lut[p.Goo];
}
}
Yes, static members persists (not the same thing as persisted - it's not "saved", it never goes away), which would include implementations of a singleton. You get a degree of lazy initialisation for free, as if it's created in a static assignment or static constructor, it won't be called until the relevant class is first used. That creation locks by default, but all other uses would have to be threadsafe as you say. Given the degree of concurrency involved, then unless the singleton was going to be immutable (your look-up table doesn't change for application lifetime) you would have to be very careful as to how you update it (one way is a fake singleton - on update you create a new object and then lock around assigning it to replace the current value; not strictly a singleton though it looks like one "from the outside").
The big danger is that anything introducing global state is suspect, and especially when dealing with a stateless protocol like the web. It can be used well though, especially as an in-memory cache of permanent or near-permanent data, particularly if it involves an object graph that cannot be easily obtained quickly from a database.
The pitfalls are considerable though, so be careful. In particular, the risk of locking issues cannot be understated.
Edit, to match the edit in the question:
My big concern would be how the array gets initialised. Clearly this example is incomplete as it'll only ever have 0 for each item. If it gets set at initialisation and is the read-only, then fine. If it's mutable, then be very, very careful about your threading.
Also be aware of the negative effect of too many such look-ups on scaling. While you save for mosts requests in having pre-calculation, the effect is to have a period of very heavy work when the singleton is updated. A long-ish start-up will likely be tolerable (as it won't be very often), but arbitrary slow downs happening afterwards can be tricky to trace to their source.
I wouldn't rely on a static being persisted between requests. [There is always the, albeit unlikely, chance that the process would be reset between requests.] I'd recommend HttpContext's Cache object for persisting shared resources between requests.
Edit: See Jon's comments about read-only locking.
It's been a while since I've dealt with singleton's (I prefer letting my IOC container deal with lifetimes), but here's how you can handle the thread-safety issues. You'll need to lock around anything that mutates the state of the singleton. Read only operations, like your Compute(int) won't need locking.
// I typically create one lock per collection, but you really need one per set of atomic operations; if you ever modify two collections together, use one lock.
private object lutLock = new object();
private int[] lut = new int[5000];
public int Compute(Product p) {
return lut[p.Goo];
}
public void SetValue(int index, int value)
{
//lock as little code as possible. since this step is read only we don't lock it.
if(index < 0 || index > lut.Length)
{
throw new ArgumentException("Index not in range", "index");
}
// going to mutate state so we need a lock now
lock(lutLock)
{
lut[index] = value;
}
}