CODEWITHSUNDEEP
javamultithreadingsockets
micnil
micnil

Reputation: 4805

Which way of implementing thread is most beneficial?

I am working on a webserver written in Java. The web server is handling websocket communication with the clients and therefore we have a class called ClientHandler that has a socket and id as instance variables. The ClientHandler will need to have a function that will listen for messages from the clients. This function needs to work in paralell to the rest of the server, and since the "reading of messages" is a thread blocking function, we need a separate thread for this.

Here's the two alternative ways of implementing this: 

public class ClientHandler implements Runnable{

//Instance variable
public Thread listener = new Thread(this);
.
.
.
public void run() {

    while (!Thread.interrupted()){
        //Listening code here
    }
}

}

And then start the listener thread by writing 

clientHandler.listener.start();

And stop it by writing 

clientHandler.listener.interrupt();

Or this method:

public class ClientHandler {

//Instance variable
private Thread listenerTread;
private boolean alive; //set to true in constructor
.
.
.
public void listenToClient() {
    listenerTread = new Thread(new Runnable() {
        @Override
        public void run(){
            while (!alive){
            //Listening code here
            }
        }
    });
}

}

and then start the thread by calling the function listenToClient()

clientHandler.listenToClient();

and stop it by switching alive = false.

I have tried to find someone explaining the best solution, but most comparisons are between implementing Runnable or extending Thread. Is the any downsides to using either of the methods above? What method is best if I want to have multiple threads in one class?

Upvotes: 2

Views: 130

Answers (2)

Alexei Kaigorodov
Alexei Kaigorodov

Reputation: 13535

You have two tasks. One is to listen for new connections and initiate serving of that connections. Second is to actually serve a connection. The decision to serve each connection within a separate thread is an implementation detail of the second task. In principle, it can be served in other ways, with a thread pool or with async IO. So this implementation detail should be hidden inside the code of the second task and must not be visible to the code of the first task. So use the second way.

Upvotes: 0

Slimu
Slimu

Reputation: 2371

I'm not sure you want to explicitly create a Thread instance. Why don't you try using a ThreadPoolExecutor to which you submit the tasks for execution. Read here more about thread pool. http://docs.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/essential/concurrency/pools.html

Since you can have many clients, using a thread pool may improve the performance of your application.

Upvotes: 2

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