From e19d2ec6e4a64969e84e3b8ce52c15d9f34205fb Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: shiffman <daniel.shiffman@gmail.com>
Date: Thu, 15 Dec 2011 15:52:17 +0000
Subject: [PATCH] added a new thread() example

---
 .../Topics/Advanced Data/Threads/Threads.pde  | 111 ++++++++++++++++++
 1 file changed, 111 insertions(+)
 create mode 100644 java/examples/Topics/Advanced Data/Threads/Threads.pde

diff --git a/java/examples/Topics/Advanced Data/Threads/Threads.pde b/java/examples/Topics/Advanced Data/Threads/Threads.pde
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..ebcd7a40a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/java/examples/Topics/Advanced Data/Threads/Threads.pde	
@@ -0,0 +1,111 @@
+/**
+ * Thread function example
+ * by Daniel Shiffman.  
+ * 
+ * This example demonstrates how to use thread() to spawn
+ * a process that happens outside of the main animation thread.
+ *
+ * When thread() is called, the draw() loop will continue while
+ * the code inside the function passed to thread() will operate
+ * in the background.
+ *
+ * For more about threads, see: http://wiki.processing.org/w/Threading
+ */
+
+// This sketch will load data from all of these URLs in a separate thread
+String[] urls = {
+  "http://processing.org", 
+  "http://www.processing.org/exhibition/", 
+  "http://www.processing.org/reference/", 
+  "http://www.processing.org/reference/libraries", 
+  "http://www.processing.org/reference/tools",   
+  "http://www.processing.org/reference/environment",   
+  "http://www.processing.org/learning/", 
+  "http://www.processing.org/learning/basics/", 
+  "http://www.processing.org/learning/topics/", 
+  "http://www.processing.org/learning/gettingstarted/",
+  "http://www.processing.org/download/", 
+  "http://www.processing.org/shop/", 
+  "http://www.processing.org/about/", 
+  "http://www.processing.org/about/people"
+};
+
+// This will keep track of whether the thread is finished
+boolean finished = false;
+// And how far along
+float percent = 0;
+
+// A variable to keep all the data loaded
+String allData;
+
+void setup() {
+  size(640, 360);
+  smooth();
+  // Spawn the thread!
+  thread("loadData");
+}
+
+void draw() {
+  background(0);
+  
+  // If we're not finished draw a "loading bar"
+  // This is so that we can see the progress of the thread
+  // This would not be necessary in a sketch where you wanted to load data in the background
+  // and hide this from the user, allowing the draw() loop to simply continue
+  if (!finished) {
+    stroke(255);
+    noFill();
+    rect(width/2-150, height/2, 300, 10);
+    fill(255);
+    // The size of the rectangle is mapped to the percentage completed
+    float w = map(percent, 0, 1, 0, 300);
+    rect(width/2-150, height/2, w, 10);
+    textSize(14);
+    textAlign(CENTER);
+    fill(255);
+    text("Loading", width/2, height/2+30);
+  } 
+  else {
+    // The thread is complete!
+    textAlign(CENTER);
+    textSize(24);
+    fill(255);
+    text("Finished loading. Click the mouse to load again.", width/2, height/2);
+  }
+}
+
+void mousePressed() {
+   thread("loadData");
+}
+
+void loadData() {
+  // The thread is not completed
+  finished = false;
+  // Reset the data to empty
+  allData = "";
+  
+  // Look at each URL
+  // This example is doing some highly arbitrary things just to make it take longer
+  // If you had a lot of data parsing you needed to do, this can all happen in the background
+  for (int i = 0; i < urls.length; i++) {
+    String[] lines = loadStrings(urls[i]);
+    // Demonstrating some arbitrary text splitting, joining, and sorting to make the thread take longer
+    String allTxt = join(lines, " ");
+    String[] words = splitTokens(allTxt, "\t+\n <>=\\-!@#$%^&*(),.;:/?\"\'");
+    for (int j = 0; j < words.length; j++) {
+      words[j] = words[j].trim();
+      words[j] = words[j].toLowerCase();
+    }
+    words = sort(words);
+    allData += join(words, " ");
+    percent = float(i)/urls.length;
+  }
+  
+  String[] words = split(allData," ");
+  words = sort(words);
+  allData = join(words, " ");
+  
+  // The thread is completed!
+  finished = true;
+}
+