tomcat background threads

Question

I have a tomcat 6.20 instance running, and would like to send an email via a background thread to prevent the email sending function from blocking the request.

Is there any way I can execute the thread in the background, while still allowing normal page flow to occur.

The application is written in ICEfaces.

Thanks.

Answer 1

1. Create an Executor using java.util.concurrent.Executors.newCachedThreadPool (or one of the other factory methods) in your controller/servlet's initialization method.
2. When a request comes in, wrap the mail-sending logic in a java.lang.Runnable
3. Submit the Runnable to the Executor

This will perform the sending in the background. Remember to create a single Executor at startup, and share across all the requests; don't create a new Executor every time (you could, but it would be a bit slow and wasteful).