waiting for some asynchronous method to complete

[Wolfgang]

For diagnostic purposes I'm looking for a way to wait for the
completion of some asynchronous method. For example

//Do something here.
// Then do something asynchronous, that normally goes off in it's own
thread, e.g.:

Graphics.drawImage(...);

// or some other other asynchronous method whatever.

// Now I want to wait until the asynchronous method returns, before I
continue with the main thread of my program.

I understand the value of threading, but in some debugging scenarios
I'd rather be synchronous -- temporarily.

I know there are specialized tools for special cases, such as
MediaTracker. But isn't there a more general solution for this, for
all those cases that don't have special waiting tools?

Thanks for any help.

Wolfgang

 

[thoff]

This is a use for semaphores, this link looked good:
http://www.cs.wcupa.edu/~rkline/OS/Java_locks_semaphores.html.
Basically you use wait() in thread1, which blocks you, thread2
does some work, and the when the work is completed thread2 uses
notify to unblock thread1 so it can proceed.

You might want to look at CommunicatingSequentialProcesses
for a better more complete approach
(http://www.cs.kent.ac.uk/projects/ofa/jcsp/).

 

[Chris Uppal]

I understand the value of threading, but in some debugging scenarios
I'd rather be synchronous -- temporarily.

Why not just refrain from starting a Thread in these cases and call the run()
method directly ?

-- chris

 

[Gregory A. Swarthout]

Look at Thread.join()