concurrency in Java - just on a method?

Question

I've read some tutorials online and finding it hard to follow and they all refer to setting up a new class and running the threads on the main. I don't have a main as I'm building a backend for a GUI and I am just working to an interface.

I have pasted a sample of code below, to try and demonstrate what I want do.

public class TestClass {

public void testMethod(){
    Queue<List<Long>> q = new ArrayDeque<>();
    List<Long> testList = new ArrayList<>();
    testList.add(9L);
    q.add(testList);

    while(q.size()>0){
        //take off list from front of queue
        //manipulate list and return it to queue/Delete it if no more to add and not reached a threshold.
    }

So basically I'd like to call the while loop as a thread as I want to be able to control the time it runs for and also get some efficiency.

Can someone advise please?

Thanks

Answer 1

Change your while loop to something like this.

Thread t = new Thread(){
    public void run() {
        while (q.size() > 0) {
            // take off list from front of queue
            // manipulate list and return it to queue/Delete it if no more to
            // add and not reached a threshold.
        }
        //all other code
    };
};
t.start();

Or you can wait for the thread to finish execution but that again blocks your testMethod until your while loop finishes. I don't think this is what you need.

Thread t = new Thread(){
    public void run() {
        while (q.size() > 0) {
            // take off list from front of queue
            // manipulate list and return it to queue/Delete it if no more to
            // add and not reached a threshold.
        }
    };
};
t.start();
t.join();//waits for the thread to finish execution.
//rest of your code.