Being asynchronously notified of a BlockingQueue having an item available

Question

I need an Object to be asynchronously notified when some BlockingQueue has got an item to give.

I've searched both Javadoc and the web for a pre-made solution, then I ended up with a (maybe naive) solution of mine, here it is:

interface QueueWaiterListener<T> {
    public void itemAvailable(T item, Object cookie);
}

and

class QueueWaiter<T> extends Thread {

    protected final BlockingQueue<T> queue;
    protected final QueueWaiterListener<T> listener;
    protected final Object cookie;

    public QueueWaiter(BlockingQueue<T> queue, QueueWaiterListener<T> listener, Object cookie) {
        this.queue = queue;
        this.listener = listener;
        this.cookie = cookie;
    }

    public QueueWaiter(BlockingQueue<T> queue, QueueWaiterListener<T> listener) {
        this.queue = queue;
        this.listener = listener;
        this.cookie = null;
    }

    @Override
    public void run() {
        while (!isInterrupted()) {
            try {
                T item = queue.take();
                listener.itemAvailable(item, cookie);
            } catch (InterruptedException e) {
            }
        }
    }
}

Basically, there's a thread blocking on a take() operation of a queue that callbacks a listener object everytime a take() operation succeeds, optionally sending back a special cookie object (ignore it if you want).

Question is: is there any better way to do this? Am I doing some unforgivable mistake (both in concurrency/efficiency and/or code cleanness)? Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

Perhaps you could subclass some BlockingQueue (such as ArrayBlockingQueue or LinkedBlockingQueue or what ever you're using), add support for listeners and do

@Override
public boolean add(E o) {
    super.add(o);
    notifyListeners(o);
}

Answer 2

This looks like a good standard pattern for queue blocking and listeners. You make a good choice of making the listener interface. If you are not using the BlockingQueue class (which I am not clear of), the only thing is that you have manage is the correct wait() and notify() for managing the blocking call.

This particular SO Question "A simple scenario using wait() and notify() in java" provides a good overview on wait and notify and the usage related to BlockingQueue