Look, there's no easy way to do this. I'm working on a project that is inherently multithreaded. Events come in from the operating system and I have to process them concurrently.
The simplest way to deal with testing complex, multithreaded application code is this: If it's too complex to test, you're doing it wrong. If you have a single instance that has multiple threads acting upon it, and you can't test situations where these threads step all over each other, then your design needs to be redone. It's both as simple and as complex as this.
There are many ways to program for multithreading that avoids threads running through instances at the same time. The simplest is to make all your objects immutable. Of course, that's not usually possible. So you have to identify those places in your design where threads interact with the same instance and reduce the number of those places. By doing this, you isolate a few classes where multithreading actually occurs, reducing the overall complexity of testing your system.
But you have to realize that even by doing this, you still can't test every situation where two threads step on each other. To do that, you'd have to run two threads concurrently in the same test, then control exactly what lines they are executing at any given moment. The best you can do is simulate this situation. But this might require you to code specifically for testing, and that's at best a half step towards a true solution.
Probably the best way to test code for threading issues is through static analysis of the code. If your threaded code doesn't follow a finite set of thread safe patterns, then you might have a problem. I believe Code Analysis in VS does contain some knowledge of threading, but probably not much.
Look, as things stand currently (and probably will stand for a good time to come), the best way to test multithreaded apps is to reduce the complexity of threaded code as much as possible. Minimize areas where threads interact, test as best as possible, and use code analysis to identify danger areas.
It is bad form to use this
in lock statements because it is generally out of your control who else might be locking on that object.
In order to properly plan parallel operations, special care should be taken to consider possible deadlock situations, and having an unknown number of lock entry points hinders this. For example, any one with a reference to the object can lock on it without the object designer/creator knowing about it. This increases the complexity of multi-threaded solutions and might affect their correctness.
A private field is usually a better option as the compiler will enforce access restrictions to it, and it will encapsulate the locking mechanism. Using this
violates encapsulation by exposing part of your locking implementation to the public. It is also not clear that you will be acquiring a lock on this
unless it has been documented. Even then, relying on documentation to prevent a problem is sub-optimal.
Finally, there is the common misconception that lock(this)
actually modifies the object passed as a parameter, and in some way makes it read-only or inaccessible. This is false. The object passed as a parameter to lock
merely serves as a key. If a lock is already being held on that key, the lock cannot be made; otherwise, the lock is allowed.
This is why it's bad to use strings as the keys in lock
statements, since they are immutable and are shared/accessible across parts of the application. You should use a private variable instead, an Object
instance will do nicely.
Run the following C# code as an example.
public class Person
{
public int Age { get; set; }
public string Name { get; set; }
public void LockThis()
{
lock (this)
{
System.Threading.Thread.Sleep(10000);
}
}
}
class Program
{
static void Main(string[] args)
{
var nancy = new Person {Name = "Nancy Drew", Age = 15};
var a = new Thread(nancy.LockThis);
a.Start();
var b = new Thread(Timewarp);
b.Start(nancy);
Thread.Sleep(10);
var anotherNancy = new Person { Name = "Nancy Drew", Age = 50 };
var c = new Thread(NameChange);
c.Start(anotherNancy);
a.Join();
Console.ReadLine();
}
static void Timewarp(object subject)
{
var person = subject as Person;
if (person == null) throw new ArgumentNullException("subject");
// A lock does not make the object read-only.
lock (person.Name)
{
while (person.Age <= 23)
{
// There will be a lock on 'person' due to the LockThis method running in another thread
if (Monitor.TryEnter(person, 10) == false)
{
Console.WriteLine("'this' person is locked!");
}
else Monitor.Exit(person);
person.Age++;
if(person.Age == 18)
{
// Changing the 'person.Name' value doesn't change the lock...
person.Name = "Nancy Smith";
}
Console.WriteLine("{0} is {1} years old.", person.Name, person.Age);
}
}
}
static void NameChange(object subject)
{
var person = subject as Person;
if (person == null) throw new ArgumentNullException("subject");
// You should avoid locking on strings, since they are immutable.
if (Monitor.TryEnter(person.Name, 30) == false)
{
Console.WriteLine("Failed to obtain lock on 50 year old Nancy, because Timewarp(object) locked on string \"Nancy Drew\".");
}
else Monitor.Exit(person.Name);
if (Monitor.TryEnter("Nancy Drew", 30) == false)
{
Console.WriteLine("Failed to obtain lock using 'Nancy Drew' literal, locked by 'person.Name' since both are the same object thanks to inlining!");
}
else Monitor.Exit("Nancy Drew");
if (Monitor.TryEnter(person.Name, 10000))
{
string oldName = person.Name;
person.Name = "Nancy Callahan";
Console.WriteLine("Name changed from '{0}' to '{1}'.", oldName, person.Name);
}
else Monitor.Exit(person.Name);
}
}
Console output
'this' person is locked!
Nancy Drew is 16 years old.
'this' person is locked!
Nancy Drew is 17 years old.
Failed to obtain lock on 50 year old Nancy, because Timewarp(object) locked on string "Nancy Drew".
'this' person is locked!
Nancy Smith is 18 years old.
'this' person is locked!
Nancy Smith is 19 years old.
'this' person is locked!
Nancy Smith is 20 years old.
Failed to obtain lock using 'Nancy Drew' literal, locked by 'person.Name' since both are the same object thanks to inlining!
'this' person is locked!
Nancy Smith is 21 years old.
'this' person is locked!
Nancy Smith is 22 years old.
'this' person is locked!
Nancy Smith is 23 years old.
'this' person is locked!
Nancy Smith is 24 years old.
Name changed from 'Nancy Drew' to 'Nancy Callahan'.
Best Answer
First of all, I think a big chuck of the code you pasted from the book example is missing; it makes it quite difficult to understand your question.
Secondly, it is true that doSet() can potentially be called many times recursively but a StackOverflowException will not occur in this case because of one saving grace: tail recursion. doSet() is called recursively at the end of of the function (no more processing is done after the recursive call) and can not be overridden (defined inside an object) which qualify it to be optimized into a loop without any stack overhead.
In 2.8.0, there is an annotation called @scala.annotation.tailrec which, when used on a def, will ensure that the recursive call inside the def is indeed tail recursive.