Prevent from being blocked.

Question

Hello everyone,
When invoking a third party function (which I can not modify its behavior), my application will be blocked when something error occurs and the block dues to the thid party function, which will be blocked when something error occurs.
I am wondering how can I make my application not be blocked by the third party function. I want the function call to the third party function return in some fixed time (for example, 5 seconds) or less than that period, whether or not something error occurs. I am just focusing on not be blocked and will never wait for results if its processing time is more than some fixed time (for example, 5 seconds).
Thanks in advance,
George

Answer 1

Here's a small example:public class Test {
    public static void main (String[] parameters) {
        long ctm = System.currentTimeMillis ();
        Invoker invoker = new Invoker ();
        Thread thread = new Thread (invoker);
        thread.start ();
        synchronized (invoker) {
            try {
                invoker.wait (5000);
            } catch (InterruptedException exception) {}
        if (thread.isAlive ()) {
            thread.interrupt ();
        System.out.println ("Test has waited " + (System.currentTimeMillis () - ctm) + " ms");
    private static class Invoker implements Runnable {
        public void run () {
            boolean notify = true;
            try {
                int ms = (int) (Math.random () * 9000) + 1000;
                System.out.println ("Invoker will sleep " + ms + " ms");
                Thread.sleep (ms);
            } catch (InterruptedException exception) {
                // don't notify
                notify = false;
            if (notify) {
                synchronized (this) {
                    notify ();
}I'm not claiming it's the best possible way - it shows the flow that the other posters suggested.
Kind regards,
  Levi