How to limit the execution time of a third-party Java method

Question

In a Java program I need to execute a method of a third-paryt java class. I use Class.forName to get a class and newInstance() to get an object of this class:

Class  class  = Class.forName(className);
AClass object = (AClass) class.newInstance(); 

Then I execute and get a result of the desired method with

ResultObject result = object.method();

So far, so good. But the problem appears if I want to limit the execution time of the method (ie, if the method doesn't stop after a given number of seconds, I would like to kill this execution and ignore the result).

An ideal solution would be to run the method in a separate thread and to stop&destroy this thread if the method doesn't finish in time. But unfortunately a thread CAN NOT BE STOPED (it's stop() method is deprecated) and I can not rely on correct interrupt-behaviour of the third-party method.

Is there any other way to execute a method and to have a full control over its execution (ie to be able to kill it any time)? I am sure that this is possible - Netbeans, for example, can execute my class (when I run my application) and it can kill it if I press stop button. But how does Netbeans (or Eclipse or any othe IDE) manage to do this?

Any idea? Thanks!

Answer 1

One option would be to run the 3rd party code not just in a seperate thread, but in a seperate process. It's a hassle, but you can kill the process whenever you want to and it's guaranteed to work.