Executing a Thread in Asynctask and its complications

问题

I was wondering is it ok to execute a Thread inside the doInBackground method of Asynctask. Should I avoid using this kind of structure on my codes? And if yes, why should I avoid it? Would this cause any ineffectiveness in my apps?

回答1:

In principle, there's no problem with starting a thread in the doInBackground() of an AsyncTask, but sometimes you see this done not because it's the right thing to do, but because of a misunderstanding about how AsyncTask works.

The point is that doInBackground() will automatically get executed on a background (non-GUI) thread, without you needing to create a thread for it yourself. That, in fact, is the whole point of an AsyncTask. So if you have a simple, linear task that you want executed in the background, you do it with an AsyncTask, and you don't need to do any manual thread creation.

Where you might want to start a new thread in an AsyncTask is if you want your background task to use multiple threads to complete. Suppose that you were writing an app to check the online status of various servers, and display something about their status on the screen. You'd use an AsyncTask to do the network access in the background; but if you did it in a naive way, you'd end up with the servers being pinged one by one, which would be rather slow (especially if one was down, and you needed to wait for a timeout). The better option would be to make sure that each server was dealt with on its own background thread. You'd then have a few options, each of which would be defensible:

1. Have a separate AsyncTask for each server.
2. Create a thread for each server inside the doInBackground() of your single AsyncTask, and then make sure that doInBackground() doesn't complete until all the individual threads have completed (use Thread.join()).
3. Use a ThreadPool / some kind of ExecutorService / a fork/join structure inside your single AsyncTask, to manage the threads for you.

I would say that with modern libraries there is rarely a need for manual thread creation. Library functions will manage all of this for you, and take some of the tedium out of it, and make it less error-prone. The third option above is functionally equivalent to the second, but just uses more of the high-level machinery that you've been given, rather than going DIY with your thread creation.

I'm not saying that threads should never be created manually, but whenever you're tempted to create one, it's well worth asking whether there's a high-level option that will do it for you more easily and more safely.

回答2:

is it ok to execute a Thread inside the doInBackground method of Asynctask.

yes it is but it really depends on your application and your usage. for example in a multithread server-client app you must create for each incoming clients one thread and also you must listen on another thread. so creating thread inside another is ok. and you can use asynctask for listening to your clients.

Should I avoid using this kind of structure on my codes? And if yes, why should I avoid it?

If you design it carefully you do not need to avoid, for example make sure that on rotation you do not create another asynctask because for example if your user rotates 5 times you create 5 asynctasks and in each of them you create a thread that means you will get 10 threads, soon you will get memory leak.

Would this cause any ineffectiveness in my apps? Can you explain these questions please.

I answered it above, I think better idea is using Thread Pool to minimize number of creating your threads or wraping your asynctask in a UI less fragment so you are sure you have one asynctask regardless of whats going to happen.

回答3:

In any higher programming language, there is concept of multi-tasking. Basically the user needs to run some portion of code without user interaction. A thread is generally developed for that. But in Android, multi-tasking can be done by any of the three methods Thread and AsyncTask.

Thread

A thread is a concurrent unit of execution. It has its own call stack. There are two methods to implement threads in applications.

One is providing a new class that extends Thread and overriding its run() method. The other is providing a new Thread instance with a Runnable object during its creation. A thread can be executed by calling its "start" method. You can set the "Priority" of a thread by calling its "setPriority(int)" method.

A thread can be used if you have no affect in the UI part. For example, you are calling some web service or download some data, and after download, you are displaying it to your screen. Then you need to use a Handler with a Thread and this will make your application complicated to handle all the responses from Threads.

A Handler allows you to send and process Message and Runnable objects associated with a thread's MessageQueue. Each thread has each message queue. (Like a To do List), and the thread will take each message and process it until the message queue is empty. So, when the Handler communicates, it just gives a message to the caller thread and it will wait to process.

If you use Java threads then you need to handle the following requirements in your own code:

• Synchronization with the main thread if you post back results to the user interface
• No default for canceling the thread
• No default thread pooling
• No default for handling configuration changes in Android

AsyncTask

AsyncTask enables proper and easy use of the UI thread. This class allows performing background operations and publishing results on the UI thread without having to manipulate threads and/or handlers. An asynchronous task is defined by a computation that runs on a background thread and whose result is published on the UI thread.

AsyncTask will go through the following 4 stages:

1. onPreExecute()

Invoked on the UI thread before the task is executed

2. doInbackground(Params..)

Invoked on the background thread immediately after onPreExecute() finishes executing.

3. onProgressUpdate(Progress..)

Invoked on the UI thread after a call to publishProgress(Progress...).

4. onPostExecute(Result)

Invoked on the UI thread after the background computation finishes.

And there are lot of good resources over internet which may help you:

http://www.vogella.com/articles/AndroidBackgroundProcessing/article.html http://www.mergeconflict.net/2012/05/java-threads-vs-android-asynctask-which.html

回答4:

I would say there is no problem in doing that if you need something to run concurrently beside the AsyncTask.

One issue could be one of readability (using 2 different ways for concurrency), but I really can't see the harm in that - especially if one of the tasks needs to show it's result in the UI and the other one doesn't.

来源：https://stackoverflow.com/questions/26156269/executing-a-thread-in-asynctask-and-its-complications