[concurrency-interest] An article example

[David Holmes]

Alex,

They code the wait() in an "if" , instead of a "while" loop.

     synchronized(lock) {
         if (queue.isEmpty()) {
            try {
               lock.wait();
            } catch (InterruptedException e) {
               assert (false);
            }
         }
         current = queue.removeFirst();
      }

So two consumers wait because it was empty. The producer does a notifyAll
and so both consumers think there is work to do when there is only one item
in the queue.

Cheers,
David Holmes

> -----Original Message-----
> From: concurrency-interest-bounces at cs.oswego.edu
> [mailto:concurrency-interest-bounces at cs.oswego.edu]On Behalf Of
> Alexandru Popescu ?
> Sent: Monday, 30 April 2007 9:09 AM
> To: userConcurrency
> Subject: [concurrency-interest] An article example
>
>
> Hi all!
>
> I was reading the PrintQueue example in this article:
> http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/java/library/j-contest.html.
> Later in the article there is the following comment:
>
> [quote]
> [snip...] and suddenly you'll get a NoSuchElementException thrown by
> LinkedList.removeFirst() in line 24. The bug lurks in the following
> scenario:
>
>    1. Two consumer threads are started, find the queue to be empty,
> and do wait().
>    2. A producer enqueues a task and notifies both consumers.
>    3. One consumer gets the lock, works the task, and leaves the queue
> empty. It then releases the lock.
>    4. The second consumer gets the lock (it can proceed because it was
> notified) and tries to work a task, but now the queue is empty.
> [/quote]
>
> Now this comment kind of confuses me because as far as I can say by
> the end of step3, the queue is indeed empty and the 2nd consumer will
> see this in the condition queue.isEmpty() so it will wait.
>
> Can you please explain what am I missing?
>
> many thanks in advance,
>
> ./alex
> --
> .w( the_mindstorm )p.
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