Telling a ThreadPoolExecutor when it should go ahead or not

Question

I have to send a set of files to several computers through a certain port. The fact is that, each time that the method that sends the files is called, the destination data (address and port) is calculated. Therefore, using a loop that creates a thread for each method call, and surround the method call with a try-catch statement for a BindException to process the situation of the program trying to use a port which is already in use (different destination addresses may receive the message through the same port) telling the thread to wait some seconds and then restart to retry, and keep trying until the exception is not thrown (the shipping is successfully performed). I didn't know why (although I could guess it when I first saw it), Netbeans warned me about that sleeping a Thread object inside a loop is not the best choice. Then I googled a bit for further information and found this link to another stackoverflow post, which looked so interesting (I had never heard of the ThreadPoolExecutor class). I've been reading both that link and the API in order to try to improve my program, but I'm not yet pretty sure about how am I supposed to apply that in my program. Could anybody give a helping hand on this please?

EDIT: The important code:

        for (Iterator<String> it = ConnectionsPanel.list.getSelectedValuesList().iterator(); it.hasNext();) {
        final String x = it.next();
        new Thread() {

            @Override
            public void run() {
                ConnectionsPanel.singleAddVideos(x);
            }
        }.start();
    }

    private static void singleAddVideos(String connName) {
    String newVideosInfo = "";

    for (Iterator<Video> it = ConnectionsPanel.videosToSend.iterator(); it.hasNext();) {
        newVideosInfo = newVideosInfo.concat(it.next().toString());
    }

    try {
        MassiveDesktopClient.sendMessage("hi", connName);
        if (MassiveDesktopClient.receiveMessage(connName).matches("hello")) {
            MassiveDesktopClient.sendMessage(newVideosInfo, connName);
        }
    } catch (BindException ex) {
        MassiveDesktopClient.println("Attempted to use a port which is already being used. Waiting and retrying...", new Exception().getStackTrace()[0].getLineNumber());
        try {
            Thread.sleep(MassiveDesktopClient.PORT_BUSY_DELAY_SECONDS * 1000);
        } catch (InterruptedException ex1) {
            JOptionPane.showMessageDialog(null, ex1.toString(), "Error", JOptionPane.ERROR_MESSAGE);
        }
        ConnectionsPanel.singleAddVideos(connName);
        return;
    }

    for (Iterator<Video> it = ConnectionsPanel.videosToSend.iterator(); it.hasNext();) {
        try {
            MassiveDesktopClient.sendFile(it.next().getAttribute("name"), connName);
        } catch (BindException ex) {
            MassiveDesktopClient.println("Attempted to use a port which is already being used. Waiting and retrying...", new Exception().getStackTrace()[0].getLineNumber());
            try {
                Thread.sleep(MassiveDesktopClient.PORT_BUSY_DELAY_SECONDS * 1000);
            } catch (InterruptedException ex1) {
                JOptionPane.showMessageDialog(null, ex1.toString(), "Error", JOptionPane.ERROR_MESSAGE);
            }
            ConnectionsPanel.singleAddVideos(connName);
            return;
        }
    }
}

Answer 1

Your question is not very clear - I understand that you want to rerun your task until it succeeds (no BindException). To do that, you could:

• try to run your code without catching the exception
• capture the exception from the future
• reschedule the task a bit later if it fails

A simplified code would be as below - add error messages and refine as needed:

public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
    ScheduledExecutorService scheduler = Executors.newScheduledThreadPool(corePoolSize);
    final String x = "video";
    Callable<Void> yourTask = new Callable<Void>() {
        @Override
        public Void call() throws BindException {
            ConnectionsPanel.singleAddVideos(x);
            return null;
        }
    };
    Future f = scheduler.submit(yourTask);
    boolean added = false; //it will retry until success
                           //you might use an int instead to retry
                           //n times only and avoid the risk of infinite loop
    while (!added) {
        try {
            f.get();
            added = true; //added set to true if no exception caught
        } catch (ExecutionException e) {
            if (e.getCause() instanceof BindException) {
                scheduler.schedule(yourTask, 3, TimeUnit.SECONDS); //reschedule in 3 seconds
            } else {
                //another exception was thrown => handle it
            }
        }
    }
}

public static class ConnectionsPanel {

    private static void singleAddVideos(String connName) throws BindException {
        String newVideosInfo = "";

        for (Iterator<Video> it = ConnectionsPanel.videosToSend.iterator(); it.hasNext();) {
            newVideosInfo = newVideosInfo.concat(it.next().toString());
        }

        MassiveDesktopClient.sendMessage("hi", connName);
        if (MassiveDesktopClient.receiveMessage(connName).matches("hello")) {
            MassiveDesktopClient.sendMessage(newVideosInfo, connName);
        }

        for (Iterator<Video> it = ConnectionsPanel.videosToSend.iterator(); it.hasNext();) {
            MassiveDesktopClient.sendFile(it.next().getAttribute("name"), connName);
        }
    }
}