学习多线程的时候,这几个接口和类容易搞不清楚之间的联系和区别。

我们逐一来看

public
interface Runnable {
    /**
     * When an object implementing interface <code>Runnable</code> is used
     * to create a thread, starting the thread causes the object's
     * <code>run</code> method to be called in that separately executing
     * thread.
     * <p>
     * The general contract of the method <code>run</code> is that it may
     * take any action whatsoever.
     *
     * @see     java.lang.Thread#run()
     */
    public abstract void run();
}

这个Runnable说白了就是用来创建线程来用的,启动线程之后,会执行这个Runnable对象的run方法。
再来看Callable接口

/**
 * A task that returns a result and may throw an exception.
 * Implementors define a single method with no arguments called
 * <tt>call</tt>.
 *
 * <p>The <tt>Callable</tt> interface is similar to {@link
 * java.lang.Runnable}, in that both are designed for classes whose
 * instances are potentially executed by another thread.  A
 * <tt>Runnable</tt>, however, does not return a result and cannot
 * throw a checked exception.
 *
 * <p> The {@link Executors} class contains utility methods to
 * convert from other common forms to <tt>Callable</tt> classes.
 *
 * @see Executor
 * @since 1.5
 * @author Doug Lea
 * @param <V> the result type of method <tt>call</tt>
 */
public interface Callable<V> {
    /**
     * Computes a result, or throws an exception if unable to do so.
     *
     * @return computed result
     * @throws Exception if unable to compute a result
     */
    V call() throws Exception;
}

这个Callable接口跟Runnable的相同之处,call方法和run方法,都可以理解为一个线程的主函数。

区别是
1、run方法是没有返回值的,而且不能抛出checked异常,只能在run方法内部try catch住。
2、调用方式也有所区别,Runnable对象可以传入Thread构造器中,直接启动。Callable对象则需要与线程池ExecutorService一起使用。

再来看Future

/**
 * A <tt>Future</tt> represents the result of an asynchronous
 * computation.  Methods are provided to check if the computation is
 * complete, to wait for its completion, and to retrieve the result of
 * the computation.  The result can only be retrieved using method
 * <tt>get</tt> when the computation has completed, blocking if
 * necessary until it is ready.  Cancellation is performed by the
 * <tt>cancel</tt> method.  Additional methods are provided to
 * determine if the task completed normally or was cancelled. Once a
 * computation has completed, the computation cannot be cancelled.
 * If you would like to use a <tt>Future</tt> for the sake
 * of cancellability but not provide a usable result, you can
 * declare types of the form {@code Future<?>} and
 * return <tt>null</tt> as a result of the underlying task.
 *
 * <p>
 * <b>Sample Usage</b> (Note that the following classes are all
 * made-up.) <p>
 *  <pre> {@code
 * interface ArchiveSearcher { String search(String target); }
 * class App {
 *   ExecutorService executor = ...
 *   ArchiveSearcher searcher = ...
 *   void showSearch(final String target)
 *       throws InterruptedException {
 *     Future<String> future
 *       = executor.submit(new Callable<String>() {
 *         public String call() {
 *             return searcher.search(target);
 *         }});
 *     displayOtherThings(); // do other things while searching
 *     try {
 *       displayText(future.get()); // use future
 *     } catch (ExecutionException ex) { cleanup(); return; }
 *   }
 * }}</pre>
 *
 * The {@link FutureTask} class is an implementation of <tt>Future</tt> that
 * implements <tt>Runnable</tt>, and so may be executed by an <tt>Executor</tt>.
 * For example, the above construction with <tt>submit</tt> could be replaced by:
 *  <pre> {@code
 *     FutureTask<String> future =
 *       new FutureTask<String>(new Callable<String>() {
 *         public String call() {
 *           return searcher.search(target);
 *       }});
 *     executor.execute(future);}</pre>
 *
 * <p>Memory consistency effects: Actions taken by the asynchronous computation
 * <a href="package-summary.html#MemoryVisibility"> <i>happen-before</i></a>
 * actions following the corresponding {@code Future.get()} in another thread.
 *
 * @see FutureTask
 * @see Executor
 * @since 1.5
 * @author Doug Lea
 * @param <V> The result type returned by this Future's <tt>get</tt> method
 */
public interface Future<V> {

    /**
     * Attempts to cancel execution of this task.  This attempt will
     * fail if the task has already completed, has already been cancelled,
     * or could not be cancelled for some other reason. If successful,
     * and this task has not started when <tt>cancel</tt> is called,
     * this task should never run.  If the task has already started,
     * then the <tt>mayInterruptIfRunning</tt> parameter determines
     * whether the thread executing this task should be interrupted in
     * an attempt to stop the task.
     *
     * <p>After this method returns, subsequent calls to {@link #isDone} will
     * always return <tt>true</tt>.  Subsequent calls to {@link #isCancelled}
     * will always return <tt>true</tt> if this method returned <tt>true</tt>.
     *
     * @param mayInterruptIfRunning <tt>true</tt> if the thread executing this
     * task should be interrupted; otherwise, in-progress tasks are allowed
     * to complete
     * @return <tt>false</tt> if the task could not be cancelled,
     * typically because it has already completed normally;
     * <tt>true</tt> otherwise
     */
    boolean cancel(boolean mayInterruptIfRunning);

    /**
     * Returns <tt>true</tt> if this task was cancelled before it completed
     * normally.
     *
     * @return <tt>true</tt> if this task was cancelled before it completed
     */
    boolean isCancelled();

    /**
     * Returns <tt>true</tt> if this task completed.
     *
     * Completion may be due to normal termination, an exception, or
     * cancellation -- in all of these cases, this method will return
     * <tt>true</tt>.
     *
     * @return <tt>true</tt> if this task completed
     */
    boolean isDone();

    /**
     * Waits if necessary for the computation to complete, and then
     * retrieves its result.
     *
     * @return the computed result
     * @throws CancellationException if the computation was cancelled
     * @throws ExecutionException if the computation threw an
     * exception
     * @throws InterruptedException if the current thread was interrupted
     * while waiting
     */
    V get() throws InterruptedException, ExecutionException;

    /**
     * Waits if necessary for at most the given time for the computation
     * to complete, and then retrieves its result, if available.
     *
     * @param timeout the maximum time to wait
     * @param unit the time unit of the timeout argument
     * @return the computed result
     * @throws CancellationException if the computation was cancelled
     * @throws ExecutionException if the computation threw an
     * exception
     * @throws InterruptedException if the current thread was interrupted
     * while waiting
     * @throws TimeoutException if the wait timed out
     */
    V get(long timeout, TimeUnit unit)
        throws InterruptedException, ExecutionException, TimeoutException;
}

Future这个接口厉害了,用于表示一个异步任务的执行结果。接口里面定义了用于查询异步任务执行状况的方法以及获取异步任务执行结果的方法,其中的get方法在生产中应用的非常广泛,特别是get(long timeout, TimeUnit unit),可以指定一个超时时间,对响应时间和吞吐量要求很高的系统都会使用这个的。

最后再来说说FutureTask,它实现了RunnableFuture接口,这个接口顾名思义很简单,不仅继承了Runnable接口,而且也继承了Future接口。FutureTask提供了两个构造函数,可以将Runnable对象和Callable对象封装为FutureTask对象。由于实现了这么多接口,所以代码比较多,我就不粘出来了。感兴趣的同学可以自行阅读源码~

才疏学浅,如有疏漏,恳请指正,不胜感激。