224. Bounded Queues in Multithreading

224. Bounded Queues in Multithreading

🔹 1. Creating a Bounded Queue with queue.Queue

import queue

# Create a bounded queue with a maximum size of 5
q = queue.Queue(maxsize=5)

# Put items in the queue
for i in range(5):
    q.put(i)

# Check if the queue is full
print(f"Is the queue full? {q.full()}")

Fix: queue.Queue() creates a bounded queue with a specified maxsize.


🔹 2. Using queue.Queue in a Producer-Consumer Example

import queue
import threading
import time

# Create a bounded queue
q = queue.Queue(maxsize=5)

def producer():
    for i in range(10):
        q.put(i)
        print(f"Produced: {i}")
        time.sleep(0.5)

def consumer():
    while True:
        item = q.get()
        print(f"Consumed: {item}")
        time.sleep(1)

# Create threads
producer_thread = threading.Thread(target=producer)
consumer_thread = threading.Thread(target=consumer)

producer_thread.start()
consumer_thread.start()

producer_thread.join()
consumer_thread.join()

Fix: The producer adds items to the queue, and the consumer takes items out. The queue's bounded size prevents the producer from overwhelming the consumer.


🔹 3. Blocking Behavior on Full Queue

Fix: When the queue reaches its max size, the producer will be blocked until the consumer processes an item.


🔹 4. Using queue.Queue for Task Scheduling

Fix: Tasks are queued and processed by worker threads. The queue's bounded nature ensures limited concurrent processing.


🔹 5. Handling Timeouts with Bounded Queues

Fix: The timeout parameter allows the producer to timeout and handle cases when the queue is full.


🔹 6. Thread-Safe Queue with queue.Queue

Fix: Multiple threads produce items safely with a thread-safe queue.


🔹 7. Using queue.PriorityQueue for Task Prioritization

Fix: PriorityQueue allows tasks to be prioritized by a tuple of priority and task data.


🔹 8. Bounded Queue with queue.LifoQueue (Stack-like Behavior)

Fix: LifoQueue implements a stack (Last In, First Out) for the queue behavior.


🔹 9. Gracefully Closing Threads with queue.Queue

Fix: Use None as a sentinel value to signal the consumer to stop processing.


🔹 10. Using queue.Queue for Rate Limiting

Fix: A rate limit is imposed by the bounded queue's size, limiting the number of items produced in a fixed amount of time.


🚀 Summary: Why Use Bounded Queues?

Feature
Bounded Queue Benefits

Flow Control

✅ Prevents overwhelming consumers or resources.

Concurrency

✅ Enables safe access from multiple threads.

Rate Limiting

✅ Controls the rate of task production.

Thread Safety

✅ Ensures thread-safe interactions.


🚀 When to Use Bounded Queues?

Scenario
Use Bounded Queue?

Task Scheduling in a Multithreaded Environment

✅ Yes

Preventing Resource Exhaustion

✅ Yes

Rate Limiting or Throttling

✅ Yes

Ensuring Proper Synchronization Between Threads

✅ Yes

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