Choose between ExecutorService's submit and ExecutorService's execute

java multithreading executorservice
Cheok Yan Cheng picture Cheok Yan Cheng · Oct 14, 2010 · Viewed 94.6k times · Source

How should I choose between ExecutorService's submit or execute, if the returned value is not my concern?

If I test both, I didn't see any differences among the two except the returned value.

ExecutorService threadExecutor = Executors.newSingleThreadExecutor();
threadExecutor.execute(new Task());

ExecutorService threadExecutor = Executors.newSingleThreadExecutor();
threadExecutor.submit(new Task());

Answer

hochraldo picture hochraldo · Oct 21, 2010

There is a difference concerning exception/error handling.

A task queued with execute() that generates some Throwable will cause the UncaughtExceptionHandler for the Thread running the task to be invoked. The default UncaughtExceptionHandler, which typically prints the Throwable stack trace to System.err, will be invoked if no custom handler has been installed.

On the other hand, a Throwable generated by a task queued with submit() will bind the Throwable to the Future that was produced from the call to submit(). Calling get() on that Future will throw an ExecutionException with the original Throwable as its cause (accessible by calling getCause() on the ExecutionException).

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