Is there a way to take an argument in a callable method?

Question

I have created a piece of code which takes an IP address (from main method in another class) and then loops through a range of IP addresses pinging each one as it goes. I have a GUI front end on this and it was crashing (hence why I've done the multithreading. My problem is I can no longer take the IP address as an argument in my ping code as its callable. I've searched all over for this and cant seem to find a way to get round this. Is there a way for a callable method to take arguments? If not is there any other way to accomplish what I'm trying to do?

sample of my code:

public class doPing implements Callable<String>{

public String call() throws Exception{

    String pingOutput = null;

    //gets IP address and places into new IP object
    InetAddress IPAddress = InetAddress.getByName(IPtoPing);
    //finds if IP is reachable or not. a timeout timer of 3000 milliseconds is set.
    //Results can vary depending on permissions so cmd method of doing this has also been added as backup
    boolean reachable = IPAddress.isReachable(1400);

    if (reachable){
          pingOutput = IPtoPing + " is reachable.\n";
    }else{
        //runs ping command once on the IP address in CMD
        Process ping = Runtime.getRuntime().exec("ping " + IPtoPing + " -n 1 -w 300");
        //reads input from command line
        BufferedReader in = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(ping.getInputStream()));
        String line;
        int lineCount = 0;
        while ((line = in.readLine()) != null) {
            //increase line count to find part of command prompt output that we want
            lineCount++;
            //when line count is 3 print result
            if (lineCount == 3){
                pingOutput = "Ping to " + IPtoPing + ": " + line + "\n";
            }
        }
    }
    return pingOutput;
}
}

IPtoPing used to be the argument that was taken.

Stephen C · Accepted Answer · 2021-02-14T02:25:15.900

You can't pass it as the argument to call() because the method signature doesn't allow it.

However, you can pass the necessary information as a constructor argument; e.g.

public class DoPing implements Callable<String>{
    private final String ipToPing;

    public DoPing(String ipToPing) {
        this.ipToPing = ipToPing;
    }

    public String call() throws SomeException {
        InetAddress ipAddress = InetAddress.getByName(ipToPing);
        ....
    }
}

(I've corrected a couple of egregious code style violations!!)

There are ways to eliminate some of the "boilerplate" coding in the above (see some of the other answers). In this case we are talking about 4 lines of code (in a ~40 line class), so I am not convinced that it is worth the effort. (But hey, it is your code.)

Alternatively, you could:

declare DoPing as an inner class (or a lambda) and have it refer to a final ipToPing in the enclosing scope, or
add a setIpToPing(String ipToPing) method.

(The last allows a DoPing object to be reused, but the downside is that you will need to synchronize to access it thread-safely.)

score 7 · Answer 2 · answered Apr 03 '12 at 12:19

Adding to Jarle's answer -- in case you create Callable as instance of anonymous class, you can use final field outside of anonymous class for passing data into the instance:

    final int arg = 64;
    executor.submit(new Callable<Integer>() {
        public Integer call() throws Exception {
            return arg * 2;
        }
    });

Per · Answer 3 · 2016-06-14T16:01:03.740

You can't pass arguments to call() because the method signature doesn't allow it but here is at least one way to work around that by

defining an abstract class that wraps/implements Callable and
implementing a setter to "inject" a result into call()

Define an abstract class:

import java.util.concurrent.Callable;

public abstract class Callback<T> implements Callable<Void> {
    T result;

    void setResult (T result) {
        this.result = result;
    }

    public abstract Void call ();
}

Define the method that should fire the callback:

public void iWillFireTheCallback (Callback callback) {
    // You could also specify the signature like so:
    // Callback<Type of result> callback

    // make some information ("the result")
    // available to the callback function:
    callback.setResult("Some result");

    // fire the callback:
    callback.call();
}

In the place where you want to call iWillFireTheCallback:

Define the callback function (even possible inside methods):

class MyCallback extends Callback {
    @Override
    public Void call () {
        // this is the actual callback function

        // the result variable is available right away:
        Log.d("Callback", "The result is: " + result);

        return null;
    }
}

And then call iWillFireTheCallback while passing in the callback:

iWillFireTheCallback(new MyCallback());

score 5 · Answer 4 · answered Apr 03 '12 at 12:14

5

When you create the doPing-class (should be captial letter in class name), send in the ip-address in the constructor. Use this ip-address in the call-method.

answered Apr 03 '12 at 12:14

Jarle Hansen

1,911
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score 3 · Answer 5 · edited Sep 15 '20 at 12:57

3

Put some (final) fields in your doPing class, and a constructor that initializes them, then pass the values you want to use in call() to the constructor of doPing:

public class DoPing implements Callable<String>  {
     private final String ipToPing;

     public DoPing(String ip) {
         this.ipToPing = ip;
     }
     
     public String call() {
         // use ipToPing
     }
}

edited Sep 15 '20 at 12:57

stinger

2,914
1
14
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answered Apr 03 '12 at 12:17

daveb

66,867
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score 1 · Answer 6 · answered Apr 03 '12 at 12:23

You have to defien a property such as ipAddress and its accessor method. and passing its value in constructor or by setter method. In doPing class use ipAddress property.

class DoPing/* In java all classes start with capital letter */implements Callable<String>
{
    private String  ipAddress;

    public String getIpAddress()
    {
        return ipAddress;
    }

    public void setIpAddress(String ipAddress)
    {
        this.ipAddress = ipAddress;
    }

    /*
     * Counstructor 
     */
    public DoPing(String ipAddress )
    {
        this.ipAddress = ipAddress;
    }

    @Override
    public String call() throws Exception
    {
        // your logic
    }
}

score 0 · Answer 7 · answered Aug 20 '20 at 22:03

It is not always possible to make reference to (effectively) final variable to use its value as "argument", but you can make comfy general solution by yourself. First define this functional interface:

@FunctionalInteface
interface CallableFunction<T, R> {

    public abstract R call(T arg) throws Exception;

    public static <T, R> Callable<R> callable(CallableFunction<T, R> cf, T arg) {
        return () -> cf.call(arg);
    }
}

This functional interface provides static method callable that creates a Callable instance, which simply calls call(T) with provided argument (of type T). Then you need you DoPing class to implement CallableFunction like this:

public class DoPing implements CallableFunction<String, String> {

    @Override
    public String call(final String ipToPing) throws Exception {
        final var ipAddress = InetAddress.getByName(ipToPing);
        final var reachable = ipAddress.isReachable(1400);
        String pingOutput = null;
        if (reachable) {
            pingOutput = ipToPing + " is reachable.\n";
        }
        else {
            final var ping = Runtime.getRuntime().exec("ping " + ipToPing + " -n 1 -w 300");
            try (var in = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(ping.getInputStream()))) {
                String line;
                for (int lineCount = 1; (line = in.readLine()) != null; ++lineCount) {
                    if (lineCount == 3) {
                        pingOutput = "Ping to " + ipToPing + ": " + line + "\n";
                        break;
                    }
                }
            }
        }
        return pingOutput;
    }

Here we changed call signature to accept String argument and also now it implements CallableFunction and not Callable as before. Other changes are minor, but it's worth mentioning, that we prevented resource leak with use of try-with-resource on BufferedReader and also break has been added to input collecting loop (change from while to for) to terminate as quickly, as possible.

Now you can use the code e.g. like this:

    final var ping = CallableFunction.callable(new DoPing(), "127.0.0.1");
    final var task = new FutureTask<>(ping);
    new Thread(task).start();
    System.out.println(task.get(20, TimeUnit.SECONDS));

You can also reuse CallableFunction in other cases, when you needed it.

score 0 · Answer 8 · answered Jan 22 '21 at 19:11

I know it is super-late to answer this, considering it is more than 8 years old but active 15 days(!) ago, I feel this will still help someone using Java 8 and above.

PS, it is simply a syntactic sugar of Victor Sorokin's answer possible through lambdas.

public static Callable<String> generateCallableWithArg(final String input) {
    return () -> {
      Thread.sleep(5000); // someExpensiveOperationHere
      return "Return Value of " + input; //input can be used here
    };
  }

Also, we can write a static helper method that can convert a Function to Callable.

public class CallableGenerator {

  public static <T,V> Callable<V> getCallableFromFunction(Function<T, V> function, T input) {
    return () -> function.apply(input);
  }
}

This can be used as

Callable<Integer> iAmCallable = CallableGenerator.getCallableFromFunction(i1 -> i1 * 2, 3);

Is there a way to take an argument in a callable method?

8 Answers8

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