How to terminate a specific code block after ceratin time even in a loop

Question

For example I have some code block which takes more than 30 seconds to execute but I want to stop that if it takes more than 30 seconds. I am trying with executor.shutdown(), executor.awaitTermination(30, TimeUnit.SECONDS) and executor.shutdownNow(); but i can not understand where I have to write my code block which I want to terminate after a specific time. Please give an perfect example.

You can't do that reliably, so you're going to have to rethink what you're doing. — Kayaman, Jan 28 '18 at 18:16
Please show your attempt, even if you think it is wrong. It will help to illustrate what you are trying to do. — Andy Turner, Jan 28 '18 at 18:17

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Jan 28 '18 at 18:27

It is pretty simple: when using threads there is no reliable way to kill that thread ( see here for example).

The only choice: start another JVM in another process - because that you can actually kill. See here for details.

Of course - this is rather not the way to go. A better way would be to implement your long-running-task in a way that regularly checks for "cancel" commands for example.

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Jan 28 '18 at 18:44

The way to go with your methods mentioned, you just add your task to the executor, then in the next line of code put executor.shutdown(); It restricts your executor from taking other tasks and then your actually put executor.awaitTermination(30, TimeUnit.SECONDS) to set the "timer" to wait for the task to complete during this time

A simple samle code snipet:

ExecutorService taskExecutor = Executors.newFixedThreadPool(1);
taskExecutor.execute(new MyTask());

taskExecutor.shutdown();
try {
  taskExecutor.awaitTermination(Long.MAX_VALUE, TimeUnit.NANOSECONDS);
} catch (InterruptedException e) {
  ...
}

How to terminate a specific code block after ceratin time even in a loop

2 Answers2