Java Coding Problems

214. Fork/join framework

We've already had an introduction to the fork/join framework in the Work-stealing thread pool section.

Mainly, the fork/join framework is meant to take a big task (typically, by big we understand a large volume of data) and recursively split (fork) it into smaller tasks (subtasks) that can be performed in parallel. In the end, after all the subtasks have been completed, their results are combined (joined) in a single result.

The following diagram is a visual representation of a fork-join flow:

In API terms, a fork/join can be created via java.util.concurrent.ForkJoinPool.

Before JDK 8, the recommended approach relied ...