How to timeout a thread

Question

I want to run a thread for some fixed amount of time. If it is not completed within that time, I want to either kill it, throw some exception, or handle it in some way. How

Answer 1

I had the same problem. So i came up with a simple solution like this.

public class TimeoutBlock {

 private final long timeoutMilliSeconds;
    private long timeoutInteval=100;

    public TimeoutBlock(long timeoutMilliSeconds){
        this.timeoutMilliSeconds=timeoutMilliSeconds;
    }

    public void addBlock(Runnable runnable) throws Throwable{
        long collectIntervals=0;
        Thread timeoutWorker=new Thread(runnable);
        timeoutWorker.start();
        do{ 
            if(collectIntervals>=this.timeoutMilliSeconds){
                timeoutWorker.stop();
                throw new Exception("<<<<<<<<<<****>>>>>>>>>>> Timeout Block Execution Time Exceeded In "+timeoutMilliSeconds+" Milli Seconds. Thread Block Terminated.");
            }
            collectIntervals+=timeoutInteval;           
            Thread.sleep(timeoutInteval);

        }while(timeoutWorker.isAlive());
        System.out.println("<<<<<<<<<<####>>>>>>>>>>> Timeout Block Executed Within "+collectIntervals+" Milli Seconds.");
    }

    /**
     * @return the timeoutInteval
     */
    public long getTimeoutInteval() {
        return timeoutInteval;
    }

    /**
     * @param timeoutInteval the timeoutInteval to set
     */
    public void setTimeoutInteval(long timeoutInteval) {
        this.timeoutInteval = timeoutInteval;
    }
}

Guarantees that if block didn't execute within the time limit. the process will terminate and throws an exception.

example :

try {
        TimeoutBlock timeoutBlock = new TimeoutBlock(10 * 60 * 1000);//set timeout in milliseconds
        Runnable block=new Runnable() {

            @Override
            public void run() {
                //TO DO write block of code 
            }
        };

        timeoutBlock.addBlock(block);// execute the runnable block 

    } catch (Throwable e) {
        //catch the exception here . Which is block didn't execute within the time limit
    }