Java Executors: how can I set task priority?

Question

Is there a possibility to set priority to tasks which are executed by Executors? I've found some statements in JCIP about it's possible but I cannot find any example and I cannot find anything related in docs.

From JCIP:

An execution policy specifies the "what, where, when, and how" of task execution, including:

• ...
• In what order should tasks be executed (FIFO, LIFO, priority order)?
• ...

UPD: I realized that I asked not exactly what I wanted to ask. What I really wanted is:

How to use/emulate setting threads priority (i.e. what was thread.setPriority()) with executors framework?

Answer 1

you can use ThreadPoolExecutor with Priority blocking queue How to implement PriorityBlockingQueue with ThreadPoolExecutor and custom tasks

Answer 2

The idea here is to use a PriorityBlockingQueue in the executor. For this:

• Create a comparator that would compare our futures.
• Create a proxy for the Future to hold a priority.
• Override 'newTaskFor' in order to wrap every future in our proxy.

First you need to hold priority on your future:

    class PriorityFuture<T> implements RunnableFuture<T> {

    private RunnableFuture<T> src;
    private int priority;

    public PriorityFuture(RunnableFuture<T> other, int priority) {
        this.src = other;
        this.priority = priority;
    }

    public int getPriority() {
        return priority;
    }

    public boolean cancel(boolean mayInterruptIfRunning) {
        return src.cancel(mayInterruptIfRunning);
    }

    public boolean isCancelled() {
        return src.isCancelled();
    }

    public boolean isDone() {
        return src.isDone();
    }

    public T get() throws InterruptedException, ExecutionException {
        return src.get();
    }

    public T get(long timeout, TimeUnit unit) throws InterruptedException, ExecutionException, TimeoutException {
        return src.get();
    }

    public void run() {
        src.run();
    }
}

Next you need to define comparator that would correctly sort the priority futures:

class PriorityFutureComparator implements Comparator<Runnable> {
    public int compare(Runnable o1, Runnable o2) {
        if (o1 == null && o2 == null)
            return 0;
        else if (o1 == null)
            return -1;
        else if (o2 == null)
            return 1;
        else {
            int p1 = ((PriorityFuture<?>) o1).getPriority();
            int p2 = ((PriorityFuture<?>) o2).getPriority();

            return p1 > p2 ? 1 : (p1 == p2 ? 0 : -1);
        }
    }
}

Next let's assume we have a lengthy job like this:

class LenthyJob implements Callable<Long> {
    private int priority;

    public LenthyJob(int priority) {
        this.priority = priority;
    }

    public Long call() throws Exception {
        System.out.println("Executing: " + priority);
        long num = 1000000;
        for (int i = 0; i < 1000000; i++) {
            num *= Math.random() * 1000;
            num /= Math.random() * 1000;
            if (num == 0)
                num = 1000000;
        }
        return num;
    }

    public int getPriority() {
        return priority;
    }
}

Then in order to execute these jobs in priority the code will look like:

public class TestPQ {

    public static void main(String[] args) throws InterruptedException, ExecutionException {
        int nThreads = 2;
        int qInitialSize = 10;

        ExecutorService exec = new ThreadPoolExecutor(nThreads, nThreads, 0L, TimeUnit.MILLISECONDS,
                new PriorityBlockingQueue<Runnable>(qInitialSize, new PriorityFutureComparator())) {

            protected <T> RunnableFuture<T> newTaskFor(Callable<T> callable) {
                RunnableFuture<T> newTaskFor = super.newTaskFor(callable);
                return new PriorityFuture<T>(newTaskFor, ((LenthyJob) callable).getPriority());
            }
        };

        for (int i = 0; i < 20; i++) {
            int priority = (int) (Math.random() * 100);
            System.out.println("Scheduling: " + priority);
            LenthyJob job = new LenthyJob(priority);
            exec.submit(job);
        }
    }
}

This is a lot of code but that's nearly the only way this can be accomplished.

On my machine the output is like the following:

Scheduling: 39
Scheduling: 90
Scheduling: 88
Executing: 39
Scheduling: 75
Executing: 90
Scheduling: 15
Scheduling: 2
Scheduling: 5
Scheduling: 24
Scheduling: 82
Scheduling: 81
Scheduling: 3
Scheduling: 23
Scheduling: 7
Scheduling: 40
Scheduling: 77
Scheduling: 49
Scheduling: 34
Scheduling: 22
Scheduling: 97
Scheduling: 33
Executing: 2
Executing: 3
Executing: 5
Executing: 7
Executing: 15
Executing: 22
Executing: 23
Executing: 24
Executing: 33
Executing: 34
Executing: 40
Executing: 49
Executing: 75
Executing: 77
Executing: 81
Executing: 82
Executing: 88
Executing: 97

Answer 3

You can specify a ThreadFactory in the ThreadPoolExecutor constructor (or Executors factory method). This allows you to provide threads of a given thread priority for the executor.

To get different thread priorities for different jobs, you'd need to send them to executors with different thread factories.

Answer 4

You can implement your own ThreadFactory and set it within ThreadPoolExecutor like this:

ThreadPoolExecutor threadPool = new ThreadPoolExecutor(1, numOfWorkerThreads, 0L, TimeUnit.MILLISECONDS, new LinkedBlockingQueue<Runnable>());
threadPool.setThreadFactory(new OpJobThreadFactory(Thread.NORM_PRIORITY-2));

where my OpJobThreadFactory looks like the following:

public final static class OpJobThreadFactory implements ThreadFactory {
   private int priority;
   private boolean daemon;
   private final String namePrefix;
   private static final AtomicInteger poolNumber = new AtomicInteger(1);
   private final AtomicInteger threadNumber = new AtomicInteger(1);

   public OpJobThreadFactory(int priority) {
      this(priority, true);
   }

   public OpJobThreadFactory(int priority, boolean daemon) {
      this.priority = priority;
      this.daemon = daemon;
      namePrefix = "jobpool-" +poolNumber.getAndIncrement() + "-thread-";
   }

   @Override
   public Thread newThread(Runnable r) {
      Thread t = new Thread(r, namePrefix + threadNumber.getAndIncrement());
      t.setDaemon(daemon);
      t.setPriority(priority);
      return t;
   }
}

Answer 5

Please be aware that setPriority(..) normally does not work under Linux. See the following links for the full details:

• http://www.javamex.com/tutorials/threads/priority_what.shtml
• http://www.akshaal.info/2008/04/javas-thread-priorities-in-linux.html

Answer 6

Currently the only concrete implementations of the Executor interface are the ThreadPoolExecutor and the ScheduledThreadpoolExecutor

Instead of using the utility / factory class Executors, you should create an instance using a constructor.

You can pass a BlockingQueue to the constructors of the ThreadPoolExecutor.

One of the implementations of the BlockingQueue, the PriorityBlockingQueue lets you pass a Comparator to a constructor, that way enabling you to decide the order of execution.