What is the fork/join framework

The Fork/Join framework is a concurrent programming framework in Java introduced in Java 7 that simplifies the process of parallelizing tasks. It allows developers to break tasks into smaller subtasks, which can be executed in parallel, thus improving the performance of applications. The framework is particularly useful for tasks that can be divided into smaller units of work and merged back together once completed.

It utilizes a work-stealing algorithm that efficiently manages the workload across multiple threads. If a thread completes its task and has no further tasks to perform, it can "steal" tasks from other threads, helping to ensure that the available CPU resources are utilized optimally.

Example

// Example of Fork/Join framework usage in Java import java.util.concurrent.RecursiveTask; import java.util.concurrent.ForkJoinPool; public class ForkJoinExample extends RecursiveTask { private final int start; private final int end; public ForkJoinExample(int start, int end) { this.start = start; this.end = end; } @Override protected Integer compute() { if (end - start <= 10) { int sum = 0; for (int i = start; i < end; i++) { sum += i; } return sum; } else { int mid = (start + end) / 2; ForkJoinExample leftTask = new ForkJoinExample(start, mid); ForkJoinExample rightTask = new ForkJoinExample(mid, end); leftTask.fork(); // Execute left task in parallel return rightTask.compute() + leftTask.join(); // Compute right task and join results } } public static void main(String[] args) { ForkJoinPool pool = new ForkJoinPool(); ForkJoinExample task = new ForkJoinExample(1, 100); int result = pool.invoke(task); System.out.println("Sum: " + result); } }

Fork/Join framework Java concurrency Parallel computing Java 7 Work-stealing algorithm