Getting a result from a parallel task in Java using CompletableFuture

In this post we saw how to start several processes on different threads using the CompletableFuture class. The example concentrated on methods with no return value. We let CompletableFuture finish the tasks in parallel before continuing with another process.

In this post we’ll see a usage of CompletableFuture for functions with a return value. We’ll reuse several elements we saw in the post that concentrated on the Future class.

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Waiting for background tasks to finish using the CompletableFuture class in Java

Introduction

In this post we saw how to wait for a number background tasks to finish using the CountDownLatch class. The starting point for the discussion was the following situation:

Imagine that you execute a number of long running methods. Also, let’s say that the very last time consuming process depends on the previous processes, let’s call them prerequisites. The dependence is “sequential” meaning that the final stage should only run if the prerequisites have all completed and returned. The first implementation may very well be sequential where the long running methods are called one after the other and each of them blocks the main thread.

However, in case the prerequisites can be executed independently then there’s a much better solution: we can execute them in parallel instead. Independence in this case means that prerequisite A doesn’t need any return value from prerequisite B in which case parallel execution of A and B is not an option.

In this post we’ll look at an alternative solution using the CompletableFuture class. It is way more versatile than CountDownLatch which is really only sort of like a simple lock object. CompletableFuture offers a wide range of possibilities to organise your threads with a fluent API. Here we’ll start off easy with a simple application of this class.

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