Asynchronous tasks inside a Ghidra Extension

[kn0wl3dge]

Hi,

I am developing a Ghidra Extension that query an API with the current program sha256 and then fill a table with the results.
So I just have a ProgramPlugin, a ComponentProvider and a TableModel.

The thing is the API queries can take more than 30sec (this is intended) and Ghidra completely freezes during this period of time.

What would be the best way to make asynchronous tasks inside a Ghidra Extension ?

[ryanmkurtz]

I can only give a quick answer right now...Ghidra provides a Task API for this sort of thing. Try searching for classes that start with Task for examples.

[astrelsky]

Not sure what your point was re: FunctionalInterface, but:

ghidra/Ghidra/Features/GraphServices/src/main/java/ghidra/graph/export/GraphExporterDialog.java

Lines 265 to 266 in 91aea06

	TaskLauncher.launchModal("Exporting Graph",
	monitor -> success.set(tryExport(monitor)));

A lambda requires a FunctionalInterface or it won't compile. Mostly a gripe that I have to make a class a lot of the time when I should be able to just use a lambda.

[dev747368]

Hopefully we aren't talking past each other, but:

Java functional interface doc

However, the compiler will treat any interface meeting the definition of a functional interface as a functional interface regardless of whether or not a FunctionalInterface annotation is present on the interface declaration.

But you are correct that there are a lot of situations where something is almost a candidate, but you can't use a lambda. Especially some of the older awt / swing listener APIs! So frustrating.

[topia]

I'm not sure exactly why/how for now, but it can compile with generating MonitorRunnable (without FunctionalInterface).

ghidra/Ghidra/Framework/Docking/src/main/java/ghidra/util/task/TaskLauncher.java

Line 112 in 91aea06

public static void launchModal(String title, MonitoredRunnable runnable) {

ghidra/Ghidra/Framework/Generic/src/main/java/ghidra/util/task/MonitoredRunnable.java

Line 22 in 91aea06

public interface MonitoredRunnable {

[topia]

https://www.oracle.com/technical-resources/articles/java/architect-lambdas-part1.html

The designers of Java 8 have chosen to give us an annotation, @FunctionalInterface, to serve as a documentation hint that an interface is designed to be used with lambdas, but the compiler does not require this—it determines “functional interfaceness” from the structure of the interface, not from the annotation.

Finally I found that annotation doesn't required at all.

[astrelsky]

Huh I wasn't aware of this. Either that or I am confused with something else that had always prevented me from doing it.

[dev747368]

In addition to doing your stuff in a Task thread, since you are using a TableModel, you might be able to do a ThreadedTableModel. There are several examples in the code base, but the main idea is that you do your slow work in your model's doLoad() method.

[kn0wl3dge]

Thanks for your reply! I am going to switch to a ThreadedTableModel since it seems to be more adapted to my case.