到目前为止,我已经避免了测试多线程代码的噩梦,因为它似乎是一个太大的雷区。我想知道人们是如何测试依赖于线程的代码以获得成功执行的,或者人们是如何测试那些仅在两个线程以给定方式交互时才会出现的问题的?
对于今天的程序员来说,这似乎是一个非常关键的问题,恕我直言,将我们的知识集中在这个问题上是很有用的。
到目前为止,我已经避免了测试多线程代码的噩梦,因为它似乎是一个太大的雷区。我想知道人们是如何测试依赖于线程的代码以获得成功执行的,或者人们是如何测试那些仅在两个线程以给定方式交互时才会出现的问题的?
对于今天的程序员来说,这似乎是一个非常关键的问题,恕我直言,将我们的知识集中在这个问题上是很有用的。
当前回答
听着,要做到这一点并不容易。我正在做一个本来就是多线程的项目。事件来自操作系统,我必须并发地处理它们。
处理测试复杂的多线程应用程序代码的最简单方法是:如果它太复杂而无法测试,那么您做错了。如果您有一个单独的实例,其中有多个线程作用于它,并且您无法测试这些线程相互踩在一起的情况,那么您的设计需要重做。它既简单又复杂。
有许多方法可以为多线程编程,以避免线程同时通过实例运行。最简单的方法是使所有对象都是不可变的。当然,这通常是不可能的。因此,您必须在设计中确定线程与同一实例交互的地方,并减少这些地方的数量。通过这样做,您可以隔离多线程实际发生的几个类,从而降低测试系统的总体复杂性。
但是您必须意识到,即使这样做,您仍然不能测试两个线程相互践踏的每一种情况。要做到这一点,您必须在同一个测试中并发地运行两个线程,然后准确地控制它们在任何给定时刻执行的行。你能做的就是模拟这种情况。但这可能需要您专门为测试编写代码,这充其量是迈向真正解决方案的半步。
测试代码是否存在线程问题的最好方法可能是对代码进行静态分析。如果您的线程代码没有遵循有限的线程安全模式集,那么您可能会遇到问题。我相信VS中的代码分析确实包含了一些线程的知识,但可能不多。
看,就目前的情况来看(可能还会持续很长一段时间),测试多线程应用程序的最佳方法是尽可能降低线程代码的复杂性。最小化线程交互的区域,尽可能地进行测试,并使用代码分析来识别危险区域。
其他回答
上周我花了大部分时间在大学图书馆学习并发代码的调试。核心问题是并发代码是不确定的。通常,学术调试可以分为三个阵营之一:
Event-trace/replay. This requires an event monitor and then reviewing the events that were sent. In a UT framework, this would involve manually sending the events as part of a test, and then doing post-mortem reviews. Scriptable. This is where you interact with the running code with a set of triggers. "On x > foo, baz()". This could be interpreted into a UT framework where you have a run-time system triggering a given test on a certain condition. Interactive. This obviously won't work in an automatic testing situation. ;)
现在,正如上面评论者所注意到的,您可以将并发系统设计成更确定的状态。然而,如果你做得不好,你就又回到了设计顺序系统的问题上。
我的建议是,专注于制定一个非常严格的设计协议,规定什么是线程,什么不是线程。如果你限制了你的接口,使元素之间的依赖最小化,那就容易多了。
祝你好运,继续解决这个问题。
有一些很好的工具。下面是一些Java的摘要。
一些好的静态分析工具包括FindBugs(提供了一些有用的提示)、JLint、Java Pathfinder (JPF & JPF2)和Bogor。
multithreaddtc是一个非常好的动态分析工具(集成到JUnit中),您必须在其中设置自己的测试用例。
IBM研究院的竞赛很有趣。它通过插入各种线程修改行为(例如sleep & yield)来检测你的代码,试图随机发现错误。
SPIN是对Java(和其他)组件建模的一个非常酷的工具,但是您需要一些有用的框架。它很难使用,但如果你知道如何使用它,它是非常强大的。相当多的工具在底层使用SPIN。
multithreaddtc可能是最主流的,但是上面列出的一些静态分析工具绝对值得一看。
它并不完美,但我用c#写了这个帮助程序:
using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Threading;
using System.Threading.Tasks;
namespace Proto.Promises.Tests.Threading
{
public class ThreadHelper
{
public static readonly int multiThreadCount = Environment.ProcessorCount * 100;
private static readonly int[] offsets = new int[] { 0, 10, 100, 1000 };
private readonly Stack<Task> _executingTasks = new Stack<Task>(multiThreadCount);
private readonly Barrier _barrier = new Barrier(1);
private int _currentParticipants = 0;
private readonly TimeSpan _timeout;
public ThreadHelper() : this(TimeSpan.FromSeconds(10)) { } // 10 second timeout should be enough for most cases.
public ThreadHelper(TimeSpan timeout)
{
_timeout = timeout;
}
/// <summary>
/// Execute the action multiple times in parallel threads.
/// </summary>
public void ExecuteMultiActionParallel(Action action)
{
for (int i = 0; i < multiThreadCount; ++i)
{
AddParallelAction(action);
}
ExecutePendingParallelActions();
}
/// <summary>
/// Execute the action once in a separate thread.
/// </summary>
public void ExecuteSingleAction(Action action)
{
AddParallelAction(action);
ExecutePendingParallelActions();
}
/// <summary>
/// Add an action to be run in parallel.
/// </summary>
public void AddParallelAction(Action action)
{
var taskSource = new TaskCompletionSource<bool>();
lock (_executingTasks)
{
++_currentParticipants;
_barrier.AddParticipant();
_executingTasks.Push(taskSource.Task);
}
new Thread(() =>
{
try
{
_barrier.SignalAndWait(); // Try to make actions run in lock-step to increase likelihood of breaking race conditions.
action.Invoke();
taskSource.SetResult(true);
}
catch (Exception e)
{
taskSource.SetException(e);
}
}).Start();
}
/// <summary>
/// Runs the pending actions in parallel, attempting to run them in lock-step.
/// </summary>
public void ExecutePendingParallelActions()
{
Task[] tasks;
lock (_executingTasks)
{
_barrier.SignalAndWait();
_barrier.RemoveParticipants(_currentParticipants);
_currentParticipants = 0;
tasks = _executingTasks.ToArray();
_executingTasks.Clear();
}
try
{
if (!Task.WaitAll(tasks, _timeout))
{
throw new TimeoutException($"Action(s) timed out after {_timeout}, there may be a deadlock.");
}
}
catch (AggregateException e)
{
// Only throw one exception instead of aggregate to try to avoid overloading the test error output.
throw e.Flatten().InnerException;
}
}
/// <summary>
/// Run each action in parallel multiple times with differing offsets for each run.
/// <para/>The number of runs is 4^actions.Length, so be careful if you don't want the test to run too long.
/// </summary>
/// <param name="expandToProcessorCount">If true, copies each action on additional threads up to the processor count. This can help test more without increasing the time it takes to complete.
/// <para/>Example: 2 actions with 6 processors, runs each action 3 times in parallel.</param>
/// <param name="setup">The action to run before each parallel run.</param>
/// <param name="teardown">The action to run after each parallel run.</param>
/// <param name="actions">The actions to run in parallel.</param>
public void ExecuteParallelActionsWithOffsets(bool expandToProcessorCount, Action setup, Action teardown, params Action[] actions)
{
setup += () => { };
teardown += () => { };
int actionCount = actions.Length;
int expandCount = expandToProcessorCount ? Math.Max(Environment.ProcessorCount / actionCount, 1) : 1;
foreach (var combo in GenerateCombinations(offsets, actionCount))
{
setup.Invoke();
for (int k = 0; k < expandCount; ++k)
{
for (int i = 0; i < actionCount; ++i)
{
int offset = combo[i];
Action action = actions[i];
AddParallelAction(() =>
{
for (int j = offset; j > 0; --j) { } // Just spin in a loop for the offset.
action.Invoke();
});
}
}
ExecutePendingParallelActions();
teardown.Invoke();
}
}
// Input: [1, 2, 3], 3
// Ouput: [
// [1, 1, 1],
// [2, 1, 1],
// [3, 1, 1],
// [1, 2, 1],
// [2, 2, 1],
// [3, 2, 1],
// [1, 3, 1],
// [2, 3, 1],
// [3, 3, 1],
// [1, 1, 2],
// [2, 1, 2],
// [3, 1, 2],
// [1, 2, 2],
// [2, 2, 2],
// [3, 2, 2],
// [1, 3, 2],
// [2, 3, 2],
// [3, 3, 2],
// [1, 1, 3],
// [2, 1, 3],
// [3, 1, 3],
// [1, 2, 3],
// [2, 2, 3],
// [3, 2, 3],
// [1, 3, 3],
// [2, 3, 3],
// [3, 3, 3]
// ]
private static IEnumerable<int[]> GenerateCombinations(int[] options, int count)
{
int[] indexTracker = new int[count];
int[] combo = new int[count];
for (int i = 0; i < count; ++i)
{
combo[i] = options[0];
}
// Same algorithm as picking a combination lock.
int rollovers = 0;
while (rollovers < count)
{
yield return combo; // No need to duplicate the array since we're just reading it.
for (int i = 0; i < count; ++i)
{
int index = ++indexTracker[i];
if (index == options.Length)
{
indexTracker[i] = 0;
combo[i] = options[0];
if (i == rollovers)
{
++rollovers;
}
}
else
{
combo[i] = options[index];
break;
}
}
}
}
}
}
使用示例:
[Test]
public void DeferredMayBeBeResolvedAndPromiseAwaitedConcurrently_void0()
{
Promise.Deferred deferred = default(Promise.Deferred);
Promise promise = default(Promise);
int invokedCount = 0;
var threadHelper = new ThreadHelper();
threadHelper.ExecuteParallelActionsWithOffsets(false,
// Setup
() =>
{
invokedCount = 0;
deferred = Promise.NewDeferred();
promise = deferred.Promise;
},
// Teardown
() => Assert.AreEqual(1, invokedCount),
// Parallel Actions
() => deferred.Resolve(),
() => promise.Then(() => { Interlocked.Increment(ref invokedCount); }).Forget()
);
}
我喜欢编写两个或多个测试方法在并行线程上执行,并且每个方法都调用被测对象。我一直在使用Sleep()调用来协调来自不同线程的调用顺序,但这并不真正可靠。它也慢得多,因为你必须睡足够长的时间,时间通常是有效的。
我从编写FindBugs的同一组中找到了多线程TC Java库。它允许您在不使用Sleep()的情况下指定事件的顺序,而且它是可靠的。我还没试过。
这种方法的最大限制是它只允许您测试您怀疑会引起麻烦的场景。正如其他人所说,您确实需要将多线程代码隔离到少量简单类中,以便有希望彻底测试它们。
一旦您仔细测试了您预计会导致问题的场景,那么在类中抛出一堆并发请求的不科学测试是寻找意外问题的好方法。
更新:我已经玩了一些多线程TC Java库,它工作得很好。我还将它的一些特性移植到一个。net版本,我称之为TickingTest。
近年来,在为几个项目编写线程处理代码时,我多次遇到过这个问题。我提供了一个迟来的答案,因为大多数其他答案虽然提供了替代方案,但实际上并没有回答关于测试的问题。我的答案是针对多线程代码没有替代方案的情况;为了完整性,我将讨论代码设计问题,但也将讨论单元测试。
编写可测试的多线程代码
首先要做的是将生产线程处理代码与所有执行实际数据处理的代码分开。这样,数据处理就可以作为单线程代码进行测试,多线程代码所做的唯一事情就是协调线程。
The second thing to remember is that bugs in multithreaded code are probabilistic; the bugs that manifest themselves least frequently are the bugs that will sneak through into production, will be difficult to reproduce even in production, and will thus cause the biggest problems. For this reason, the standard coding approach of writing the code quickly and then debugging it until it works is a bad idea for multithreaded code; it will result in code where the easy bugs are fixed and the dangerous bugs are still there.
相反,在编写多线程代码时,必须抱着一种从一开始就避免编写错误的态度来编写代码。如果您已经正确地删除了数据处理代码,线程处理代码应该足够小——最好只有几行,最坏也就几十行——这样您就有机会在不编写错误的情况下编写它,当然也不会编写很多错误,如果您了解线程,请慢慢来,并且小心。
为多线程代码编写单元测试
一旦尽可能仔细地编写了多线程代码,仍然值得为该代码编写测试。测试的主要目的与其说是测试高度依赖于时间的竞争条件错误(不可能重复测试这种竞争条件),不如说是测试防止这种错误的锁定策略是否允许多个线程按预期进行交互。
To properly test correct locking behavior, a test must start multiple threads. To make the test repeatable, we want the interactions between the threads to happen in a predictable order. We don't want to externally synchronize the threads in the test, because that will mask bugs that could happen in production where the threads are not externally synchronized. That leaves the use of timing delays for thread synchronization, which is the technique that I have used successfully whenever I've had to write tests of multithreaded code.
If the delays are too short, then the test becomes fragile, because minor timing differences - say between different machines on which the tests may be run - may cause the timing to be off and the test to fail. What I've typically done is start with delays that cause test failures, increase the delays so that the test passes reliably on my development machine, and then double the delays beyond that so the test has a good chance of passing on other machines. This does mean that the test will take a macroscopic amount of time, though in my experience, careful test design can limit that time to no more than a dozen seconds. Since you shouldn't have very many places requiring thread coordination code in your application, that should be acceptable for your test suite.
Finally, keep track of the number of bugs caught by your test. If your test has 80% code coverage, it can be expected to catch about 80% of your bugs. If your test is well designed but finds no bugs, there's a reasonable chance that you don't have additional bugs that will only show up in production. If the test catches one or two bugs, you might still get lucky. Beyond that, and you may want to consider a careful review of or even a complete rewrite of your thread handling code, since it is likely that code still contains hidden bugs that will be very difficult to find until the code is in production, and very difficult to fix then.