thread started a process, now what?

[Alex Kravets]

Hi,

I have a class that starts up a thread and inside thread's run() method is called. Rougly it goes like this:

abstract class BaseThread extends Thread{
     private boolean isTimerExpired = false;
     public void run(){
// initalize a timer 
timer = new Timer();
// start timer
timer.schedule(new RemindTask(), timeout*100);

// try executing long task
while(!isTimerExpired){
object = longTask();
// if longTask creates object stop executing
if(object != null){
isTimerExpired = true;
}
}
}
 
        protected abstract Object longTask();
       ....
       private class RemindTask extends TimerTask{
public void run() {
timer.cancel();
monitor.setCanceled(true);

// set variable to true so that thread can finish.
isTimerExpired = true;
}
} 
}

So here thread starts a timer and runs until either longTask() returns something or timer expires.

I have two questions:

1.Is while loop in run() enough to kill a thread?
2.longTask() is an abstract method that must be implemented by extending class, so if there is a long process in the implementation of longTask(), when this thread dies will/should whatever is going on in longTask() die as well?

thanks,
Alex
[ July 31, 2006: Message edited by: Alex Kravets ]

[Stan James]

Here's how I approached the same requirement ... if I got it right

LongRunningThing lrt = new LongRunningThing() );
Thread t = new Thread( lrt );
t.start();
t.join( MAX_TIME );
if( !lrt.finished() )
   throw new CustomTimedOutException();
return lrt.getResults();

I don't have my actual code in hand, but I think join(nnn) just returns after the time and doesn't throw anything. I did this because I couldn't find any way to kill the long running task or make it time out. If it takes more time than allowed, I exception out but the task goes on to completion and the result is thrown away.

Does that solve the right problem?