I'm trying to grok how C# 5's new async feature works. Suppose I want to develop an atomic increment function for incrementing an integer in a fictitious IntStore. Multiple calls are made to this function in one thread only.
async void IncrementKey(string key) {
int i = await IntStore.Get(key);
IntStore.Set(key, i+1);
}
It seems to me that this function is flawed. Two calls to IncrementKey could get the same number back from IntStore (say 5), and then set it to 6, thus losing one of the increments?
How could this be re-written, if IntStore.Get is asynchronous (returns Task) in order to work correctly?
Performance is critical, is there a solution that avoids locking?
If you are sure you are calling your function from only one thread, then there shouldn't be any problem, because only one call to IntStore.Get could be awaiting at at time. This because:
await IncrementKey("AAA");
await IncrementKey("BBB");
the second IncrementKey won't be executed until the first IncrementKey has finished. The code will be converted to a state machine. If you don't trust it, change the IntStore.Get(key) to:
async Task<int> IntStore(string str) {
Console.WriteLine("Starting IntStore");
await TaskEx.Delay(10000);
return 0;
}
You'll see that the second Starting IntStore will be written 10 seconds after the first.
To quote from here http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ericlippert/archive/2010/10/29/asynchronous-programming-in-c-5-0-part-two-whence-await.aspx The “await” operator ... means “if the task we are awaiting has not yet completed then sign up the rest of this method as the continuation of that task, and then return to your caller immediately; the task will invoke the continuation when it completes.”
Related
I want to run a computation that might take too long. If it doesn't finish in a specific time, abort the computation and return a different value. For this problem I found Future.timeout, it would almost do the same thing that I want, except it doesn't work for this code.
Future<String> timeoutTest() async
{
return await longComputation().timeout(
Duration(milliseconds: 10),
onTimeout: () => "Took too long"
);
}
Future<String> longComputation() async
{
int startTime = DateTime.now().millisecondsSinceEpoch;
Rational n = Rational.one;
for(int i = 1; i < 2000; i++)
{
n *= Rational.fromInt(i);
}
String result = n.toDecimalString();
print("Time took: ${DateTime.now().millisecondsSinceEpoch - startTime} ms");
return result;
}
When I call print(await timeoutTest()) I either expect a string of digits that took maximum 10ms to calculate OR the "Took too long" string if it took more than 10ms. But I get the string of digits, and the message in the console: "Time took: 877 ms". So the timeout didn't work.
If I fake the computation with Future.delay, the timeout works as expected. It returns a different value, because the longComputation took at least 100ms. (I still get the message in the console: "Time took: 103ms", but this is not the main problem.)
Future<String> longComputation() async
{
int startTime = DateTime.now().millisecondsSinceEpoch;
String result = await Future.delayed(
Duration(milliseconds: 100),
() => "Fake computation result"
);
print("Time took: ${DateTime.now().millisecondsSinceEpoch - startTime} ms");
return result;
}
I'm assuming I messed up something in the longComputation, but what? There were no un-awaited Futures.
This behavior can be confusing but it is important to remember that your Dart code are only executed in a single thread (unless you are using isolates).
The problem is that the logic behind .timeout needs to run in the same single thread and Dart can't just stop the execution of your own code. So if you are running a CPU intensive calculation without any pauses you are stopping the Dart VM from running any other events on the event queue.
What the implementation of .timeout actually does, is creating an internal Timer which are going to be triggered in the future unless you get a result before the timeout value. This Timer event are going on top on the event queue like any other event in the Dart VM.
But in your first example, we are actually never going to execute any other event on the event queue before you are giving the result. So from the Future's point of view, you are returning a result before the deadline.
This is going to look like .timeout is kind of pointless but what it really are for is when you are making some IO operations like API requests where the Dart VM are actually waiting for some answer.
If you are going to use it for heavy calculations, you can either spawn an Isolate so your main isolate instance can wait on the other isolate. Alternative, you can insert some pauses in your calculation which makes space for the Dart VM to execute other events on the event queue. An example could be inserting await Future<void>(() => null); which are going to spawn a new event on top of the event queue. When we wait for all events on the queue to be executed before our own empty calculation.
It would then also make sense to add some logic so your own code can see if the timeout value has been reached so you can stop the calculation if that is the case.
You can't actually cancel Futures. At best you could have your .timeout callback set a flag that longComputation periodically checks to become a no-op as soon as possible.
Also see Future.timeout documention is misleading.
I'm still struggeling with the async/await pattern so I'm here to ask you some precisions.
I saw this page explaining the async/await pattern pretty well. I'm posting here the example that bother me :
import 'dart:async';
Future<String> firstAsync() async {
await Future<String>.delayed(const Duration(seconds: 2));
return "First!";
}
Future<String> secondAsync() async {
await Future<String>.delayed(const Duration(seconds: 2));
return "Second!";
}
Future<String> thirdAsync() async {
await Future<String>.delayed(const Duration(seconds: 2));
return "Third!";
}
void main() async {
var f = await firstAsync();
print(f);
var s = await secondAsync();
print(s);
var t = await thirdAsync();
print(t);
print('done');
}
In this example, each async method is called one after another, so the execution time for the main function is 6 seconds (3 x 2 seconds). However, I don't understand what's the point of asynchronous function if they are executed one after another.
Are async functions not supposed to execute in the background ? Is it not the point of multiple async functions to fastens the process with parrallel execution ?
I think I'm missing something about asynchronous functions and async/await pattern in flutter so if you could explain me that, it would be very appreciated.
Best
Waiting on multiple Futures to complete using Future.wait()
If the order of execution of the functions is not important, you can use Future.wait().
The functions get triggered in quick succession; when all of them complete with a value, Future.wait() returns a new Future. This Future completes with a list containing the values produced by each function.
Future
.wait([firstAsync(), secondAsync(), thirdAsyncC()])
.then((List responses) => chooseBestResponse(responses))
.catchError((e) => handleError(e));
or with async/await
try {
List responses = await Future.wait([firstAsync(), secondAsync(), thirdAsyncC()]);
} catch (e) {
handleError(e)
}
If any of the invoked functions completes with an error, the Future returned by Future.wait() also completes with an error. Use catchError() to handle the error.
Resource:https://v1-dartlang-org.firebaseapp.com/tutorials/language/futures#waiting-on-multiple-futures-to-complete-using-futurewait
The example is designed to show how you can wait for a long-running process without actually blocking the thread. In practice, if you have several of those that you want to run in parallel (for example: independent network calls), you could optimize things.
Calling await stops the execution of the method until the future completes, so the call to secondAsync will not happen until firstAsync finishes, and so on. If you do this instead:
void main() async {
var f = firstAsync();
var s = secondAsync();
var t = thirdAsync();
print(await f);
print(await s);
print(await t);
print('done');
}
then all three futures are started right away, and then you wait for them to finish in a specific order.
It is worth highlighting that now f, s, and t have type Future<String>. You can experiment with different durations for each future, or changing the order of the statements.
If anyone new in this problem use the async . Dart has a function called FutureGroup. You can use it to run futures in parallel.
Sample:
final futureGroup = FutureGroup();//instantiate it
void runAllFutures() {
/// add all the futures , this is not the best way u can create an extension method to add all at the same time
futureGroup.add(hello());
futureGroup.add(checkLocalAuth());
futureGroup.add(hello1());
futureGroup.add(hello2());
futureGroup.add(hello3());
// call the `.close` of the group to fire all the futures,
// once u call `.close` this group cant be used again
futureGroup.close();
// await for future group to finish (all futures inside it to finish)
await futureGroup.future;
}
This futureGroup has some useful methods which can help you ie. .future etc.. check the documentation to get more info.
Here's a sample usage Example One using await/async and Example Two using Future.then.
you can always use them in a single future
final results = await Future.wait([
firstAsync();
secondAsync();
thirdAsync();
]);
results will be an array of you return type. in this case array of strings.
cheers.
Try this resolve.
final List<Future<dynamic>> featureList = <Future<dynamic>>[];
for (final Partner partner in partnerList) {
featureList.add(repository.fetchAvatar(partner.uid));
}
await Future.wait<dynamic>(featureList);
If want parallel execution you should switch to multi thread concept called Isolates
mix this with async/await concepts . You can also check this website for more
https://buildflutter.com/flutter-threading-isolates-future-async-and-await/
Using async / await like that is useful when you need a resource before executing the next task.
In your example you don't do really useful things, but imagine you call firstAsync, that gives you a stored authorization token in your phone, then you call secondAsync giving this token get asynchronously and execute an HTTP request and then checking the result of this request.
In this case you don't block the UI thread (user can interact with your app) and other tasks (get token, HTTP request...) are done in background.
i think you miss understood how flutter works first flutter is not multi threaded.....!
second if it isn't multi threaded how can it executes parallel tasks, which doesnt happen....! here is some links that will help you understand more https://webdev.dartlang.org/articles/performance/event-loop
https://www.dartlang.org/tutorials/language/futures
flutter doesn't put futures on another thread but what happens that they are added to a queue the links that i added are for event loop and how future works. hope you get it , feel free to ask me :)
In the kotlinx.coroutines library you can start new coroutine using either launch (with join) or async (with await). What is the difference between them?
launch is used to fire and forget coroutine. It is like starting a new thread. If the code inside the launch terminates with exception, then it is treated like uncaught exception in a thread -- usually printed to stderr in backend JVM applications and crashes Android applications. join is used to wait for completion of the launched coroutine and it does not propagate its exception. However, a crashed child coroutine cancels its parent with the corresponding exception, too.
async is used to start a coroutine that computes some result. The result is represented by an instance of Deferred and you must use await on it. An uncaught exception inside the async code is stored inside the resulting Deferred and is not delivered anywhere else, it will get silently dropped unless processed. You MUST NOT forget about the coroutine you’ve started with async.
I find this guide to be useful. I will quote the essential parts.
🦄 Coroutines
Essentially, coroutines are light-weight threads.
So you can think of a coroutine as something that manages thread in a very efficient way.
🐤 launch
fun main(args: Array<String>) {
launch { // launch new coroutine in background and continue
delay(1000L) // non-blocking delay for 1 second (default time unit is ms)
println("World!") // print after delay
}
println("Hello,") // main thread continues while coroutine is delayed
Thread.sleep(2000L) // block main thread for 2 seconds to keep JVM alive
}
So launch starts a coroutine, does something, and returns a token immediately as Job. You can call join on this Job to block until this launch coroutine completes.
fun main(args: Array<String>) = runBlocking<Unit> {
val job = launch { // launch new coroutine and keep a reference to its Job
delay(1000L)
println("World!")
}
println("Hello,")
job.join() // wait until child coroutine completes
}
🦆 async
Conceptually, async is just like launch. It starts a separate coroutine which is a light-weight thread that works concurrently with all the other coroutines. The difference is that launch returns a Job and does not carry any resulting value, while async returns a Deferred -- a light-weight non-blocking future that represents a promise to provide a result later.
So async starts a background thread, does something, and returns a token immediately as Deferred.
fun main(args: Array<String>) = runBlocking<Unit> {
val time = measureTimeMillis {
val one = async { doSomethingUsefulOne() }
val two = async { doSomethingUsefulTwo() }
println("The answer is ${one.await() + two.await()}")
}
println("Completed in $time ms")
}
You can use .await() on a deferred value to get its eventual result, but Deferred is also a Job, so you can cancel it if needed.
So Deferred is actually a Job. Read this for more details.
interface Deferred<out T> : Job (source)
🦋 async is eager by default
There is a laziness option to async using an optional start parameter with a value of CoroutineStart.LAZY. It starts coroutine only when its result is needed by some await or if a start function is invoked.
launch and async are used to start new coroutines. But, they execute them in different manner.
I would like to show very basic example which will help you understand difference very easily
launch
class MainActivity : AppCompatActivity() {
override fun onCreate(savedInstanceState: Bundle?) {
super.onCreate(savedInstanceState)
setContentView(R.layout.activity_main)
btnCount.setOnClickListener {
pgBar.visibility = View.VISIBLE
CoroutineScope(Dispatchers.Main).launch {
val currentMillis = System.currentTimeMillis()
val retVal1 = downloadTask1()
val retVal2 = downloadTask2()
val retVal3 = downloadTask3()
Toast.makeText(applicationContext, "All tasks downloaded! ${retVal1}, ${retVal2}, ${retVal3} in ${(System.currentTimeMillis() - currentMillis)/1000} seconds", Toast.LENGTH_LONG).show();
pgBar.visibility = View.GONE
}
}
// Task 1 will take 5 seconds to complete download
private suspend fun downloadTask1() : String {
kotlinx.coroutines.delay(5000);
return "Complete";
}
// Task 1 will take 8 seconds to complete download
private suspend fun downloadTask2() : Int {
kotlinx.coroutines.delay(8000);
return 100;
}
// Task 1 will take 5 seconds to complete download
private suspend fun downloadTask3() : Float {
kotlinx.coroutines.delay(5000);
return 4.0f;
}
}
In this example, my code is downloading 3 data on click of btnCount button and showing pgBar progress bar until all download gets completed. There are 3 suspend functions downloadTask1(), downloadTask2() and downloadTask3() which downloads data. To simulate it, I've used delay() in these functions. These functions waits for 5 seconds, 8 seconds and 5 seconds respectively.
As we've used launch for starting these suspend functions, launch will execute them sequentially (one-by-one). This means that, downloadTask2() would start after downloadTask1() gets completed and downloadTask3() would start only after downloadTask2() gets completed.
As in output screenshot Toast, total execution time to complete all 3 downloads would lead to 5 seconds + 8 seconds + 5 seconds = 18 seconds with launch
async
As we saw that launch makes execution sequentially for all 3 tasks. The time to complete all tasks was 18 seconds.
If those tasks are independent and if they do not need other task's computation result, we can make them run concurrently. They would start at same time and run concurrently in background. This can be done with async.
async returns an instance of Deffered<T> type, where T is type of data our suspend function returns. For example,
downloadTask1() would return Deferred<String> as String is return type of function
downloadTask2() would return Deferred<Int> as Int is return type of function
downloadTask3() would return Deferred<Float> as Float is return type of function
We can use the return object from async of type Deferred<T> to get the returned value in T type. That can be done with await() call. Check below code for example
btnCount.setOnClickListener {
pgBar.visibility = View.VISIBLE
CoroutineScope(Dispatchers.Main).launch {
val currentMillis = System.currentTimeMillis()
val retVal1 = async(Dispatchers.IO) { downloadTask1() }
val retVal2 = async(Dispatchers.IO) { downloadTask2() }
val retVal3 = async(Dispatchers.IO) { downloadTask3() }
Toast.makeText(applicationContext, "All tasks downloaded! ${retVal1.await()}, ${retVal2.await()}, ${retVal3.await()} in ${(System.currentTimeMillis() - currentMillis)/1000} seconds", Toast.LENGTH_LONG).show();
pgBar.visibility = View.GONE
}
This way, we've launched all 3 tasks concurrently. So, my total execution time to complete would be only 8 seconds which is time for downloadTask2() as it is largest of all of 3 tasks. You can see this in following screenshot in Toast message
both coroutine builders namely launch and async are basically lambdas with receiver of type CoroutineScope which means their inner block is compiled as a suspend function, hence they both run in an asynchronous mode AND they both will execute their block sequentially.
The difference between launch and async is that they enable two different possibilities. The launch builder returns a Job however the async function will return a Deferred object. You can use launch to execute a block that you don't expect any returned value from it i.e writing to a database or saving a file or processing something basically just called for its side effect. On the other hand async which return a Deferred as I stated previously returns a useful value from the execution of its block, an object that wraps your data, so you can use it for mainly its result but possibly for its side effect as well. N.B: you can strip the deferred and get its value using the function await, which will block the execution of your statements until a value is returned or an exceptions is thrown! You could achieve the same thing with launch by using the function join()
both coroutine builder (launch and async) are cancelable.
anything more?: yep with launch if an exception is thrown within its block, the coroutine is automatically canceled and the exceptions is delivered. On the other hand, if that happens with async the exception is not propagated further and should be caught/handled within the returned Deferred object.
more on coroutines https://kotlinlang.org/docs/tutorials/coroutines/coroutines-basic-jvm.html
https://www.codementor.io/blog/kotlin-coroutines-6n53p8cbn1
Async and Launch, both are used to create coroutines that run in the background. In almost every situation one can use either of them.
tl;dr version:
When you dont care about the task's return value, and just want to run it, you may use Launch. If you need the return type from the task/coroutine you should use async.
Alternate:
However, I feel the above difference/approach is a consequence of thinking in terms of Java/one thread per request model. Coroutines are so inexpensive, that if you want to do something from the return value of some task/coroutine(lets say a service call) you are better off creating a new coroutine from that one. If you want a coroutine to wait for another coroutine to transfer some data, I would recommend using channels and not the return value from Deferred object. Using channels and creating as much number of coroutines as required, is the better way IMO
Detailed answer:
The only difference is in the return type and what functionality it provides.
Launch returns Job while Async returns Deferred. Interestingly enough, Deferred extends Job. Which implies it must be providing additional functionality on top of Job. Deferred is type parameterised over where T is the return type. Thus, Deferred object can return some response from the block of code executed by async method.
p.s. I only wrote this answer because I saw some factually incorrect answers on this question and wanted to clarify the concept for everyone. Also, while working on a pet project myself I faced similar problem because of previous Java background.
launch returns a job
async returns a result (deferred job)
launch with join is used to wait until the job gets finished. It simply suspends the coroutine calling join(), leaving the current thread free to do other work (like executing another coroutine) in the meantime.
async is used to compute some results. It creates a coroutine and returns its future result as an implementation of Deferred. The running coroutine is cancelled when the resulting deferred is cancelled.
Consider an async method that returns a string value. If the async method is used without await it will return a Deferred string but if await is used you will get a string as the result
The key difference between async and launch:
Deferred returns a particular value of type T after your Coroutine finishes executing, whereas Job doesn’t.
launch / async no result
Use when don't need the result,
Don't block the code where is called,
Run in sequential
async for result
When you need to wait for the result and can run in parallel for
efficiency,
Block the code where is called,
Run in concurrent
Alongside the other great answers, for the people familiar with Rx and getting into coroutines, async returns a Deferred which is akin to Single while launch returns a Job that is more akin to Completable. You can .await() to block and get the value of the first one, and .join() to block until the Job is completed.
Sorry for the beginers question, I read a lot of post here and on the web and there is something fondemental I can't understand.
As I understood, the usage of async actions in WebAPI is mainly for scalability reasons, so any incoming request will be diverted to a worker instead to a thread and by that, more requests could be served.
My project consists on several huge actions that read/insert/update from DB by EF6 many times. the action looks like that:
public async Task<HttpResponseMessage> Get(int id)
{
PolicyModel response = await policyRepository.GetPolicyAsync(id);
return Request.CreateResponse<PolicyModel>(HttpStatusCode.OK,response);
}
and GetPolicyAsync(int id) looks like that:
public async Task<PolicyModel> GetPolicyAsync(int id)
{
PolicyModel response = new PolicyModel();
User currentUser = await Repositories.User.GetUserDetailsAsync(id);
if(currentUser.IsNew)
{
IEnumerable<Delivery> deliveries = await Repositories.Delivery.GetAvailableDeliveries();
if(deliveries == null || deliveries.Count() == 0
{
throw new Exception("no deliveries available");
}
response.Deliveries = deliveries;
Ienumerable<Line> lines = await Repositores.Delivery.GetActiveLinesAsync();
lines.AsParallel().ForAll(line => {
await Repositories.Delivery.AssignLineAsync(line,currentUser);
}
...
return response;
}
I didn't write the entire code but it goes quite a bit and it is also broken into several methods but that is the spirit of it
now the question i have is: is it a good practice to use so many awaiters in one method? I saw that it is more difficult to debug, is it hard to maintain the thread context and for the sake of worker assignment, shouldn't I just use Task.Factory.StartNew() or maybe call a simple Task.Delay() so that the request will immidiatelly be diverted to a worker?
I know that it is not a good practice (async all the way) so maybe just one async method at the end/begining of the GetpolicyAsync(int id) method
EDIT:
as I understood the mechanics of the async methods in .net, for every async method, the compiler is looking for a free thread and let it deal withthe method, the thread is looking for a free worker and assign the method to it and then report back to the compiler that it is free. so if we have 10 threads and for every thread there are 10 workers, the program can deals with 100 concurrent async methods.
so back to web developement, the IIS assign x thread to each app pool, 10 for instance. that means that the async WebAPI method can handle 100 requests but if there is another async method inside, the amount of requests that can be dealth with are 50 and so on, am I right?
and as I understood, I must call an async method in order to make the WebAPI method truely async and now, since it is a bad practice to use Task.Factory.StartNew(), I must at least use Task.Delay()
what I really want to gain is the scalability of the async WebAPI methods and the context awareness of synced methods
in all the examples I've seen so far, they only show a very simple code but in real life, methods are far more complex
Thanks
There's nothing wrong with having many awaits in a single method. If the method becomes too complicated for you you can split it up into several methods:
public async Task<PolicyModel> GetPolicyAsync(int id)
{
PolicyModel response = new PolicyModel();
User currentUser = await Repositories.User.GetUserDetailsAsync(id);
if(currentUser.IsNew)
{
await HandleDeliveriesAsync(await Repositories.Delivery.GetAvailableDeliveries());
}
...
return response;
}
public async Task HandleDeliveriesAsync(IEnumerable<Delivery> deliveries)
{
if(deliveries == null || deliveries.Count() == 0
{
throw new Exception("no deliveries available");
}
response.Deliveries = deliveries;
Ienumerable<Line> lines = await Repositores.Delivery.GetActiveLinesAsync();
lines.AsParallel().ForAll(line => {
await Repositories.Delivery.AssignLineAsync(line,currentUser);
}
Don't use Task.Factory.StartNew or Task.Delay as it just offloads the same work to a different thread. It doesn't add any value in most cases and actually harms in ASP.Net.
After much search, I came across this artical:
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/dn802603.aspx
it explains what #i3arnon said in the comment. there are no workers at all, the threads are doing all the work.
In a nutshell, the thread that handles a web request reach to an opporation that is designed to be done asyncronically on the driver stack, it creates a request and pass it to the driver. The driver mark it as pending and reports "done" to the thread which goes back to the thread pool to get another assignment. The actual job is not being done by threads but by the driver that borrowing cpu time from all threads and leave them free to attend to their businesses. When the opporation is done, the driver notifies it and an available thread comes to continue...
so, from that I learn that I should look into each and every async method and check that it actually does an opporation that uses the drivers asyncronically.
Point to think: the scallability of your website is dependent on the amount of opporations that are truly being done asyncronically, if you don't have any of them, then your website won't scale.
moderators, I'm a real newbe, if I got it all wrong, please correct me
Thanks!
I am relating to java as to how to do thread/async. I use new Thread(target).start() where target is Runnable as one way to do threading in java. New concurrent api has alternatives but we know that on specific call new threads are creating and passed in tasks are executed.
Similarly how is async done in Dart ?
I read on send/receivport, completer/future, spawnFunction. To me only spawnFunction is convincing statement that will create new thread. can one explain how completer/future help. i know they take callbacks but is there some implicit logic/rule in javascript/dart that callbacks always be execute in different thread.
below is dart snippet/pseudo code:
void callback() {
print("callback called");
}
costlyQuery(sql, void f()) {
executeSql(sql);
f();
}
costlyQuery("select * from dual", callback);
I hope my costlyQuery signature to take function as 2nd parameter is correct. so now I do not think that f() after executeSql(sql) is going to be async. may be taking above example add completer/future if that can make async to help me understand.
tl;dr: There is no implicit rule that a callback will not block.
Javascript event queue
In Javascript, there are no threads (except WebWorkers, but that's different). This means that if any part of your code blocks, the whole application is blocked. There is nothing magic about callbacks, they are just functions:
function longLoop(cb) {
var i = 1000000;
while (i--) ;
cb();
}
function callback() {
console.log("Hello world");
}
function fun() {
longLoop(callback);
console.log("Called after Hello World is printed");
}
To make something asynchronous, the callback must be put on the event queue, which only happens through some API calls:
user initiated event handlers- clicks, keyboard, mouse
API event handlers- XmlHTTPRequest callbacks, WebWorker communication
timing functions- setTimeout, setInterval
When the event is triggered, the callback is placed on the event queue to be executed when all other callbacks have finished executing. This means that no two lines of your code will ever be executing at the same time.
Futures
I assume you have at least stumbled on this post about futures. If not, it's a good read and comes straight from the horses mouth.
In Javascript, you have to do some work to make sense of asynchronous code. There's even a Javascript library called futures for doing common things, such as asynchronous loops and sequences (full disclosure, I have personally worked with the author of this library).
The notion of a future is a promise made by the function creating the future that the future will be completed at some point down the road. If you are going to make some asynchronous call, create a future, return it, and fulfill the promise when the asynchronous call finishes. From the blog post:
Future<Results> costlyQuery() {
var completer = new Completer();
database.query("SELECT * FROM giant_table", (results) {
// when complete
completer.complete(results);
});
// this returns essentially immediately,
// before query is finished
return completer.future;
}
If database.query is a blocking call, the future will be completed immediately. This example assumes that database.query is a non-blocking call (async), so the future will be fulfilled after this function exits. completer.complete will call whatever function is passed to completer.then() with the arguments specified.
Your example, modified to be idiomatic and asynchronous:
void callback() {
print("callback called");
}
costlyQuery(sql) {
var completer = new Completer();
executeSql(sql, () => completer.complete());
return completer.future;
}
costlyQuery("select * from dual").then(callback);
This is asynchronous and uses futures correctly. You could pass your own callback function into costlyQuery as you have done and call that in the callback to executeSql to achieve the same thing, but that is the Javascript way of doing it, not the Dart way.
Isolates
Isolates are similar to Java's threads, except that isolates are a concurrency model and threads are a parallelism model (see this SO question for more information about concurrency vs parallelism).
Dart is special in that the specification does not mandate that everything be run in a single thread. It only mandates that different executing contexts do not have access to the same data. Each isolate has it's own memory and can only communicate (e.g. send data) with other isolates through send/receive ports.
These ports work similarly to channels in Go if you're familiar.
An isolate is an isolated execution context that runs independently of other code. In Javascript terms, this means that it has it's own event queue. See the Dart tour for a more complete introduction to isolates.
Lets say your executeSql is a blocking function. If we don't want to wait for it to finish, we could load it into an isolate:
void callback() {
print("callback called");
}
void costlyQuery() {
port.receive((sql, reply) {
executeSql(sql);
reply.send();
});
}
main() {
var sendPort = spawnFunction(costlyQuery);
// .call does all the magic needed to communicate both directions
sendPort.call("select * from dual").then(callback);
print("Called before executeSql finishes");
}
This code creates an isolate, sends data to it then registers a callback for when it's done. Even if executeSql blocks, main() will not necessarily block.