JNI and Java Threads

And this is where I get stuck! - I am getting garbage values back from
native unless I use the same thread each time.
[SNIP]
This seems to say that what I want is not possible, but regardless its what
I need lol so one way or another I need to figure it out. (I'm calling
native methods from the GUI and from event register calls etc.) Can anyone
offer any relatively clean work arounds or suggestions to how this can be
done? (other than the messy way I've tested as suggested above?)

Ok. Well you've told us a little on *how* you think you need to do what
you want to do, but not *what* you need to do.

Tell us *what* you want, then we can help more.
Without further details, I'd guess that you're passing around and
holding transient pointers when you shouldn't. By going to a single
thread, you hide this problem by not triggering the symptom, but it
probably is still there. I'd wager that you have some broken code on the
C side that needs cleaning up.

Hi there,

Firstly, apologies for x-post but I'm hoping the post is relevant to both
groups...

I have written a native implementation in C, and a java wrapper class. This all works fine and correctly while I am calling the wrapper methods from a
single thread, however, my application requires calling the wrapper methods for the native code from several different (java) threads.

And this is where I get stuck! - I am getting garbage values back from
native unless I use the same thread each time.

I have implemented something whereby I start a new thread, and then
wait/notify as each of the other requesting threads contact this single
thread, and then that single threads toodles off to native, but that causes problems with waiting for return values and also makes the code far more
complicated that I believe it should be.

I have seen mentions of the functions 'JNI_GetCreatedJavaVMs' and
'AttachCurrentThread()', but as far as I can see, these are mainly for
contacting the JVM from the C and not the other way around. (I may well be (and hope I am!) wrong).

This is a passage from a book I have which seems to answer my question,
kinda:

"Since a native method may be called from different threads in a Java
application, each different invocation of that native method will have a
different JNIEnv pointer passed to it. Passing this information to another thread will result in unpredictable behaviour.
On the other hand, for a given method, from a given thread, the JVM
guarantees that the same JNIEnv pointer is passed on each call to that
method."

This seems to say that what I want is not possible, but regardless its what I need lol so one way or another I need to figure it out. (I'm calling
native methods from the GUI and from event register calls etc.) Can anyone offer any relatively clean work arounds or suggestions to how this can be
done? (other than the messy way I've tested as suggested above?)

Thanks for any anyone can offer, I've been on this for days!!! I'm hoping
I've been way off base and that the answer is simple.... but hey, I also
understand that this is computing...

Rob.

Hi there,

Firstly, apologies for x-post but I'm hoping the post is relevant to both
groups...

I have written a native implementation in C, and a java wrapper class. This all works fine and correctly while I am calling the wrapper methods from a
single thread, however, my application requires calling the wrapper methods for the native code from several different (java) threads.

And this is where I get stuck! - I am getting garbage values back from
native unless I use the same thread each time.

I have implemented something whereby I start a new thread, and then
wait/notify as each of the other requesting threads contact this single
thread, and then that single threads toodles off to native, but that causes problems with waiting for return values and also makes the code far more
complicated that I believe it should be.

I have seen mentions of the functions 'JNI_GetCreatedJavaVMs' and
'AttachCurrentThread()', but as far as I can see, these are mainly for
contacting the JVM from the C and not the other way around. (I may well be (and hope I am!) wrong).

This is a passage from a book I have which seems to answer my question,
kinda:

"Since a native method may be called from different threads in a Java
application, each different invocation of that native method will have a
different JNIEnv pointer passed to it. Passing this information to another thread will result in unpredictable behaviour.
On the other hand, for a given method, from a given thread, the JVM
guarantees that the same JNIEnv pointer is passed on each call to that
method."

This seems to say that what I want is not possible, but regardless its what I need lol so one way or another I need to figure it out. (I'm calling
native methods from the GUI and from event register calls etc.) Can anyone offer any relatively clean work arounds or suggestions to how this can be
done? (other than the messy way I've tested as suggested above?)

Thanks for any anyone can offer, I've been on this for days!!! I'm hoping
I've been way off base and that the answer is simple.... but hey, I also
understand that this is computing...

Rob.

So from the GUI, I am pressing the 'open' then the 'play' button, but from
another thread I am polling the wrapper classes 'getCurrentTime' and other
methods to continually update a textual display of the cd status. And in
future I'll probably be wanting to add more thready methods for more
advanced status features.
Hmmm.. that there sounds fairly poor as far as design goes. Instead of
polling, you should register listeners and have the native code generate
notifications. In general, polling should be avoided when possible.


If I add a 'button' to the GUI, which calls the 'getCurrentTime' method, it
works fine... however, if I press the 'open' button on the GUI, and then
rely on a separate thread to poll native and update the time/clock display
on the cd player, I get garbage values back...