How can I wrap a method so that I can kill its execution if it exceeds a specified timeout?

Question

I have a method that I would like to call. However, I\'m looking for a clean, simple way to kill it or force it to return if it is taking too long to execute.

I\'m

Answer 1

Nobody answered it directly, so here's the closest thing i can give you in a short amount of psuedo code:

wrap the method in a runnable/callable. The method itself is going to have to check for interrupted status if you want it to stop (for example, if this method is a loop, inside the loop check for Thread.currentThread().isInterrupted and if so, stop the loop (don't check on every iteration though, or you'll just slow stuff down. in the wrapping method, use thread.join(timeout) to wait the time you want to let the method run. or, inside a loop there, call join repeatedly with a smaller timeout if you need to do other things while waiting. if the method doesn't finish, after joining, use the above recommendations for aborting fast/clean.

so code wise, old code:

void myMethod()
{
    methodTakingAllTheTime();
}

new code:

void myMethod()
{
    Thread t = new Thread(new Runnable()
        {
            public void run()
            {
                 methodTakingAllTheTime(); // modify the internals of this method to check for interruption
            }
        });
    t.join(5000); // 5 seconds
    t.interrupt();
}

but again, for this to work well, you'll still have to modify methodTakingAllTheTime or that thread will just continue to run after you've called interrupt.