BlockingDeque interface (added in Java 6) is a Deque that provides additional support for blocking operations. Here blocking the opearations mean that the operation will wait for the deque to become non-empty (means deque has atleast one element) when retrieving an element, and wait for space to become available in the deque when storing an element.
What is Deque
Deque is also an interface which was added in Java 6. Deque is short for "double ended queue". As the name suggests Deque supports element insertion and removal at both ends.
BlockingDeque methods
As already mentioned BlockingDeque provide support for the blocking operation, but blocking methods come in four forms, catgorized in the way these methods will handle operations that cannot be satisfied immediately, but may be satisfied at some point in the future:
- Throw exception - Methods falling in this category will throw exception if blocked.
- Return special value - This type of methods will return some value if need to wait, like false.
- Blocks - This type of methods will wait if necessary for space to become available.
- Times out - This type of methods will block for only a given maximum time limit before giving up.
These methods are summarized in the following table:
| First Element (Head) | ||||
| Throws exception | Special value | Blocks | Times out | |
| Insert | addFirst(e) | offerFirst(e) | putFirst(e) | offerFirst(e, time, unit) |
| Remove | removeFirst() | pollFirst() | takeFirst() | pollFirst(time, unit) |
| Examine | getFirst() | peekFirst() | not applicable | not applicable |
| Last Element (Tail) | ||||
| Throws exception | Special value | Blocks | Times out | |
| Insert | addLast(e) | offerLast(e) | putLast(e) | offerLast(e, time, unit) |
| Remove | removeLast() | pollLast() | takeLast() | pollLast(time, unit) |
| Examine | getLast() | peekLast() | not applicable | not applicable |
No null elements
Like any BlockingQueue, a BlockingDeque is thread safe, does not permit null elements, and may (or may not) be capacity-constrained.
BlockingDeque implementation
LinkedBlockingDeque class in Java is the implementation of the BlockingDeque interface.
Example Code
Let's create a produce consumer bounded buffer using LinkedBlockingDeque which is an implmentation of BlockingDeque.
Values will be inserted in the LinkedBlockingDeque using put() method, which will block if the space is full.
Values will be retrieved from the LinkedBlockingDeque using take() method, which retrieves and removes the head of this queue, waiting if necessary until an element becomes available.
Here in the Produce class some delay is induced using sleep() method. You can see that in Consumer class, where it is taking elements out of the deque, no excpetion will be thrown but it will block. If you are using eclipse you can see that delay in the console when it is printing. Later we'll see the same example using deque which is not thread safe there it will throw an exception.
import java.util.concurrent.BlockingDeque;
import java.util.concurrent.ExecutorService;
import java.util.concurrent.Executors;
import java.util.concurrent.LinkedBlockingDeque;
public class LinkedBlockingDQDemo {
public static void main(String[] args) {
SharedClass buffer = new SharedClass();
// Starting two threads
ExecutorService executor = Executors.newFixedThreadPool(2);
executor.execute(new Producer(buffer));
executor.execute(new Consumer(buffer));
executor.shutdown();
}
}
/**
*
*
*
*/
class Producer implements Runnable{
SharedClass buffer;
Producer(SharedClass buffer){
this.buffer = buffer;
}
@Override
public void run() {
for(int i = 0; i < 10; i++){
buffer.put(i);
if(i == 4){
try {
// introducing some delay using sleep
Thread.sleep(1000);
} catch (InterruptedException e) {
// TODO Auto-generated catch block
e.printStackTrace();
}
}
}
}
}
/**
*
*
*
*/
class Consumer implements Runnable{
SharedClass buffer;
Consumer(SharedClass buffer){
this.buffer = buffer;
}
@Override
public void run() {
for(int i = 0; i < 10; i++){
buffer.get();;
}
}
}
//Shared class used by threads
class SharedClass{
int i;
// Bounded LinkedBlockingDeque of size 10
BlockingDeque<Integer> linkedBlockingDeque = new LinkedBlockingDeque<Integer>(10);
public void get(){
try {
// take method to get from blockingdeque
System.out.println("Consumer recd - " + linkedBlockingDeque.take());
} catch (InterruptedException e) {
// TODO Auto-generated catch block
e.printStackTrace();
}
}
public void put(int i){
this.i = i;
try {
// putting in blocking deque
linkedBlockingDeque.put(i);
System.out.println("Putting - " + i);
}
catch (InterruptedException e) {
// TODO Auto-generated catch block
e.printStackTrace();
}
}
}
Output
Putting - 0
Putting - 1
Putting - 2
Putting - 3
Putting - 4
Consumer recd - 0
Consumer recd - 1
Consumer recd - 2
Consumer recd - 3
Consumer recd - 4
Putting - 5
Consumer recd - 5
Putting - 6
Consumer recd - 6
Putting - 7
Consumer recd - 7
Putting - 8
Consumer recd - 8
Putting - 9
Consumer recd - 9
Now let's write the same code as above using the Deque which is not thread safe. Here one change is instead of LinkedBlockingDeque, ArrayDeque is used which is implementation of Deque and also some delay is induced in consumer class too just to make sure that producer will start first. Then producer sleeps for 1000 MS, that is when exception is thrown.
import java.util.ArrayDeque;
import java.util.Deque;
import java.util.concurrent.ExecutorService;
import java.util.concurrent.Executors;
public class DQDemo {
public static void main(String[] args) {
SharedClass buffer = new SharedClass();
// Starting two threads
ExecutorService executor = Executors.newFixedThreadPool(2);
executor.execute(new Producer(buffer));
executor.execute(new Consumer(buffer));
executor.shutdown();
}
}
/**
*
*
*
*/
class Producer implements Runnable{
SharedClass buffer;
Producer(SharedClass buffer){
this.buffer = buffer;
}
@Override
public void run() {
for(int i = 0; i < 10; i++){
buffer.put(i);
if(i == 4){
try {
Thread.sleep(1000);
} catch (InterruptedException e) {
// TODO Auto-generated catch block
e.printStackTrace();
}
}
}
}
}
/**
*
*
*
*/
class Consumer implements Runnable{
SharedClass buffer;
Consumer(SharedClass buffer){
this.buffer = buffer;
}
@Override
public void run() {
try {
Thread.sleep(100);
} catch (InterruptedException e) {
// TODO Auto-generated catch block
e.printStackTrace();
}
for(int i = 0; i < 10; i++){
buffer.get();;
}
}
}
//Shared class used by threads
class SharedClass{
int i;
// Bouded ArrayDeque of size 10
Deque<Integer> arrayDq = new ArrayDeque<Integer>(10);
public void get(){
// retrieve from deque
System.out.println("Consumer recd - " + arrayDq.pop());
}
public void put(int i){
this.i = i;
arrayDq.push(i);
System.out.println("Putting - " + i);
}
}
Output
Putting - 0
Putting - 1
Putting - 2
Putting - 3
Putting - 4
Consumer recd - 4
Consumer recd - 3
Consumer recd - 2
Consumer recd - 1
Consumer recd - 0
Exception in thread "pool-1-thread-2" java.util.NoSuchElementException
at java.util.ArrayDeque.removeFirst(Unknown Source)
at java.util.ArrayDeque.pop(Unknown Source)
at org.netjs.prgrm.SharedClass.get(DQDemo.java:77)
at org.netjs.prgrm.Consumer.run(DQDemo.java:65)
at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor.runWorker(Unknown Source)
at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(Unknown Source)
at java.lang.Thread.run(Unknown Source)
Putting - 5
Putting - 6
Putting - 7
Putting - 8
Putting - 9
Source : https://docs.oracle.com/javase/8/docs/api/java/util/concurrent/BlockingDeque.html
That's all for this topic BlockingDeque in Java. If you have any doubt or any suggestions to make please drop a comment. Thanks!
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