java - Where to stop/destroy threads in Android Service class?

Question

I have created a threaded service the following way:

public class TCPClientService extends Service{  
...

@Override
public void onCreate() {
    ...
    Measurements = new LinkedList<String>();
    enableDataSending();    
}

@Override
public IBinder onBind(Intent intent) {
    //TODO: Replace with service binding implementation
    return null;
}

@Override
public void onLowMemory() {
    Measurements.clear();
    super.onLowMemory();
}

@Override
public void onDestroy() {
    Measurements.clear();
    super.onDestroy();
    try {
        SendDataThread.stop();
    } catch(Exception e){
        ...     
    }

}

private Runnable backgrounSendData = new Runnable() {

    public void run() {
        doSendData();
    }
};

private void enableDataSending() {
    SendDataThread = new Thread(null, backgrounSendData, "send_data");
    SendDataThread.start();
}

 private void addMeasurementToQueue() {
     if(Measurements.size() <= 100) {
         String measurement = packData();
         Measurements.add(measurement);
     }
 }

 private void doSendData() {
     while(true) {
         try {      
             if(Measurements.isEmpty()) {
                 Thread.sleep(1000);
                 continue;
             }
             //Log.d("TCP", "C: Connecting...");
             Socket socket = new Socket();
             socket.setTcpNoDelay(true);
             socket.connect(new InetSocketAddress(serverAddress, portNumber), 3000);
             //socket.connect(new InetSocketAddress(serverAddress, portNumber));
             if(!socket.isConnected()) {
                 throw new Exception("Server Unavailable!");
             }
             try {
                 //Log.d("TCP", "C: Sending: '" + message + "'");
                 PrintWriter out = new PrintWriter( new BufferedWriter( new OutputStreamWriter(socket.getOutputStream())),true);
                 String message = Measurements.remove();
                 out.println(message);
                 Thread.sleep(200);
                 Log.d("TCP", "C: Sent.");
                 Log.d("TCP", "C: Done.");
                 connectionAvailable = true;              
             } catch(Exception e) {
                 Log.e("TCP", "S: Error", e);
                 connectionAvailable = false;
             } finally {
                 socket.close();
                 announceNetworkAvailability(connectionAvailable);
             }
         } catch (Exception e) {
             Log.e("TCP", "C: Error", e);
             connectionAvailable = false;
             announceNetworkAvailability(connectionAvailable);
         }
    }
}

...
}

After I close the application the phone works really slow and I guess it is due to thread termination failure.

Does anyone know what is the best way to terminate all threads before terminating the application?

Answer 1

Addendum: The Android framework provides many helpers for one-off work, background work, etc, which may be preferable over trying to roll your own thread in many instances. As mentioned in a below post, AsyncTask is a good starting point to look into. I encourage readers to look into the framework provisions first before even beginning to think about doing their own threading.

There are several problems in the code sample you posted I will address in order:

1) Thread.stop() has been deprecated for quite some time now, as it can leave dependent variables in inconsistent states in some circumstances. See this Sun answer page for more details (Edit: that link is now dead, see this page for why not to use Thread.stop()). A preferred method of stopping and starting a thread is as follows (assuming your thread will run somewhat indefinitely):

private volatile Thread runner;

public synchronized void startThread(){
  if(runner == null){
    runner = new Thread(this);
    runner.start();
  }
}

public synchronized void stopThread(){
  if(runner != null){
    Thread moribund = runner;
    runner = null;
    moribund.interrupt();
  }
}

public void run(){
  while(Thread.currentThread() == runner){
    //do stuff which can be interrupted if necessary
  }
}

This is just one example of how to stop a thread, but the takeaway is that you are responsible for exiting a thread just as you would any other method. Maintain a method of cross thread communcation (in this case a volatile variable, could also be through a mutex, etc) and within your thread logic, use that method of communication to check if you should early exit, cleanup, etc.

2) Your measurements list is accessed by multiple threads (the event thread and your user thread) at the same time without any synchronization. It looks like you don't have to roll your own synchronization, you can use a BlockingQueue.

3) You are creating a new Socket every iteration of your sending Thread. This is a rather heavyweight operation, and only really make sense if you expect measurements to be extremely infrequent (say one an hour or less). Either you want a persistent socket that is not recreated every loop of the thread, or you want a one shot runnable you can 'fire and forget' which creates a socket, sends all relevant data, and finishes. (A quick note about using a persistent Socket, socket methods which block, such as reading, cannot be interrupted by Thread.interrupt(), and so when you want to stop the thread, you must close the socket as well as calling interrupt)

4) There is little point in throwing your own exceptions from within a Thread unless you expect to catch it somewhere else. A better solution is to log the error and if it is irrecoverable, stop the thread. A thread can stop itself with code like (in the same context as above):

public void run(){
    while(Thread.currentThread() == runner){
      //do stuff which can be interrupted if necessary

      if(/*fatal error*/){
        stopThread();
        return; //optional in this case since the loop will exit anyways
      }
    }
  }

Finally, if you want to be sure a thread exits with the rest of your application, no matter what, a good technique is to call Thread.setDaemon(true) after creation and before you start the thread. This flags the thread as a daemon thread, meaning the VM will ensure that it is automatically destroyed if there are no non-daemon threads running (such as if your app quits).

Obeying best practices with regards to Threads should ensure that your app doesn't hang or slow down the phone, though they can be quite complex :)