Java Thread Programming : Using Semaphores

The java concurrent framework provides Semaphore . Semaphores are useful when the end user wants to implement some kind of resource pool.

In a semaphore permits can be acquired and released . A semaphore when created can be initialized with the number of entries it can contain at any point of time .

Semaphore s = new Semaphore(N);

// acquire a permit

s.acquire();

// release a permit

s.release();

Java Concurrent Programming : CountDownLatch

CountDownLatch in the concurrent programming framework provided by java is pretty cool.
In principle it works like a binary latch . (Once set it remain in that state for ever )

So when would something like a countdownlatch be useful for thread programming .

Consider a scenario , you have a big task T to be done by N threads .

1) Now you want all the threads to be started at the same time so that they get equal opportunity
to participate in the completion of the task .

2) You want your main thread to do something when all the threads finish .

You can create two CountDownLatch objects.

CountDownLatch startLatch = new CountDownLatch(1);
CountDownLatch endLatch = new CountDownLatch(N);

Then you can construct all the threads like this

Thread thread = new Thread(){
public void run(){
try{
startLatch.await();
// do the task
endLatch.countDown();
}catch(InterruptedException e){
Thread.currentThread.interrupt();
}

}
}


thread.start();

so when the thread starts it will block cause of the CountDownLatch (await method call)

when startLatch.countDown() is called the latch opens and all the threads can flow now and start working .

similarly the main thread that is waiting for all threads to finish .

will continue when all the threads have called endLatch.countDown()

Eclipse Plugin Development : Small nuggets

Small snuggets for eclipse plugin development are small snippets of code useful in eclipse plugin development.

In eclipse windows that you see contains pages . Each of this page hosts a view or an editor .
Generally these editors are not hosted directly but indirectly via references ( aka proxies to the actual editor / views )

So to get reference to the actual editors / views from the pages use code like this :

IWorkbenchPage page = getPage();
IEditorReference[] editors = page.getEditorReferences();

Once you have the references you can get the actual hosted editor / view.

Editors in eclipse implement IEditorPart , so to get an editor some thing like this would work:

IEditorPart editor = editor.getEditor(true);

To reveal IJavaElement in the editor ( basically any java method , entity ) using JDT ( eclipse for java development is based on it )

JavaUI.revealInEditor(part , javaElement);

To add an action (aka tool bar item ) in the toolbar for your view something like this would work :

IActionBars actionBars = view.getViewSite().getActionBars();
IToolBarManager manager = actionBars.getToolBarManager();
manager.add(new MyToolBarItem());