Distributed Data Structures IAtomicLong

Hazelcast IAtomicLong is the distributed implementation of java.util.concurrent.atomic.AtomicLong. It offers most of AtomicLong's operations such as get, set, getAndSet, compareAndSet and incrementAndGet. Since IAtomicLong is a distributed implementation, these operations involve remote calls and thus their performances differ from AtomicLong.

The following example code creates an instance, increments it by a million, and prints the count.

public class Member {
  public static void main( String[] args ) {
    HazelcastInstance hazelcastInstance = Hazelcast.newHazelcastInstance(); 	
    IAtomicLong counter = hazelcastInstance.getAtomicLong( "counter" );
    for ( int k = 0; k < 1000 * 1000; k++ ) {
	  if ( k % 500000 == 0 ) {
	    System.out.println( "At: " + k );
      }
      counter.incrementAndGet();
    }
    System.out.printf( "Count is %s\n", counter.get() );
  }
}

When you start other instances with the code above, you will see the count as member count times a million.

Sending Functions to IAtomicLong

You can send functions to an IAtomicLong. IFunction is a Hazelcast owned, single method interface. The following sample IFunction implementation adds two to the original value.

private static class Add2Function implements IFunction <Long, Long> { 
  @Override
  public Long apply( Long input ) { 
    return input + 2;
  }
}

Executing Functions on IAtomicLong

You can use the following methods to execute functions on IAtomicLong.

• apply: Applies the function to the value in IAtomicLong without changing the actual value and returning the result.
• alter: Alters the value stored in the IAtomicLong by applying the function. It will not send back a result.
• alterAndGet: Alters the value stored in the IAtomicLong by applying the function, storing the result in the IAtomicLong and returning the result.
• getAndAlter: Alters the value stored in the IAtomicLong by applying the function and returning the original value.

The following sample code includes these methods.

public class Member {
  public static void main( String[] args ) {
    HazelcastInstance hazelcastInstance = Hazelcast.newHazelcastInstance(); 		
    IAtomicLong atomicLong = hazelcastInstance.getAtomicLong( "counter" );

    atomicLong.set( 1 );
    long result = atomicLong.apply( new Add2Function() ); 		
    System.out.println( "apply.result: " + result); 		
    System.out.println( "apply.value: " + atomicLong.get() );

    atomicLong.set( 1 );
    atomicLong.alter( new Add2Function() ); 			
    System.out.println( "alter.value: " + atomicLong.get() );

    atomicLong.set( 1 );
    result = atomicLong.alterAndGet( new Add2Function() ); 		
    System.out.println( "alterAndGet.result: " + result ); 		
    System.out.println( "alterAndGet.value: " + atomicLong.get() );

    atomicLong.set( 1 );
    result = atomicLong.getAndAlter( new Add2Function() ); 		
    System.out.println( "getAndAlter.result: " + result ); 		
    System.out.println( "getAndAlter.value: " + atomicLong.get() );
  }
}

Reasons to Use Functions with IAtomic

The reason for using a function instead of a simple code line like atomicLong.set(atomicLong.get() + 2)); is that the IAtomicLong read and write operations are not atomic. Since IAtomicLong is a distributed implementation, those operations can be remote ones, which may lead to race problems. By using functions, the data is not pulled into the code, but the code is sent to the data. This makes it more scalable.

NOTE: IAtomicLong has one synchronous backup and no asynchronous backups. Its backup count is not configurable.