Java asserts not send to console when called from a runnable

Question

In my program I made an assert - which evaluates to false - from a runnable, but never see any console output about the assert. I want to know if my asserts are false, but it seems the runnable is catching all the thrown asserts?

Below is the simplest example program I could write to demonstrate. (Assertions are enabled. The program would behave differently if they weren't and print both lines instead of just the one). The output of the program is.

About to assert False

That's it. After that the assert statement throws and is caught by something and I never know about it. I want to know about it, what am I doing wrong?

import java.nio.ByteBuffer;
import java.util.concurrent.*;
import java.awt.event.ActionListener;
import java.awt.event.ActionEvent;

import java.awt.FlowLayout;
import javax.swing.*;

class App
{
  private static final ScheduledExecutorService sExecutor =
    Executors.newSingleThreadScheduledExecutor();

  // Main
  public static void main(String[] args)
  {
    javax.swing.SwingUtilities.invokeLater(new Runnable() {
        public void run() { createAndShowGUI(); } });

  }

  // Swing GUI
  private static void createAndShowGUI()
  {
    // Just create a swing thing. Boring
    JFrame frame = new JFrame("Title String");
    JLabel label = new JLabel("Hello World");
    frame.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
    frame.getContentPane().add(label);
    frame.getContentPane().setLayout(new FlowLayout());
    frame.pack();
    frame.setVisible(true);

    // ********************************************
    // INTERESTING CODE HERE. We schedule a runnable which assert's false
    // but we never see a console assert error!
    // ********************************************
    sExecutor.schedule(new Runnable()
      { @Override public void run() { doAssertFalse(); }}, 0, TimeUnit.SECONDS);

  }

  public static void doAssertFalse()
  {
    System.out.println("About to assert False");
    assert false;
    System.out.println("Done asserting False");
  }
}

Answer 1

This will do it:

private static final ScheduledExecutorService sExecutor =
        Executors.newSingleThreadScheduledExecutor();

// Main
public static void main(String[] args)
{
    javax.swing.SwingUtilities.invokeLater(new Runnable() {
        public void run() {
            try {
                createAndShowGUI();
            } catch (ExecutionException e) {
                e.printStackTrace();
            } catch (InterruptedException e) {
                e.printStackTrace();
            }
        } });

}

// Swing GUI
private static void createAndShowGUI() throws ExecutionException, InterruptedException {
    // Just create a swing thing. Boring
    JFrame frame = new JFrame("Title String");
    JLabel label = new JLabel("Hello World");
    frame.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
    frame.getContentPane().add(label);
    frame.getContentPane().setLayout(new FlowLayout());
    frame.pack();
    frame.setVisible(true);

    // ********************************************
    // INTERESTING CODE HERE. We schedule a runnable which assert's false
    // but we never see a console assert error!
    // ********************************************
    ScheduledFuture<?> future = sExecutor.schedule(new Runnable() {
        @Override
        public void run() {
            doAssertFalse();
        }
    }, 0, TimeUnit.SECONDS);
    future.get();

}

public static void doAssertFalse()
{
    System.out.println("About to assert False");
    assert false;
    System.out.println("Done asserting False");
}

Notice I'm saving the result of schedule into a ScheduledFuture variable. The exception isn't returned until you call the get() method on the future. All exceptions are thrown wrapped in an ExecutionException.

Unfortunately this blocks, so another way you can get the exception is like this:

// Swing GUI
private static void createAndShowGUI() {
    // Just create a swing thing. Boring
    JFrame frame = new JFrame("Title String");
    JLabel label = new JLabel("Hello World");
    frame.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
    frame.getContentPane().add(label);
    frame.getContentPane().setLayout(new FlowLayout());
    frame.pack();
    frame.setVisible(true);

    // ********************************************
    // INTERESTING CODE HERE. We schedule a runnable which assert's false
    // but we never see a console assert error!
    // ********************************************
    sExecutor.schedule(new Runnable() {
        @Override
        public void run() {
            try {
                doAssertFalse();
            } catch (Error e) {
                e.printStackTrace();
            }
        }
    }, 0, TimeUnit.SECONDS);

}

public static void doAssertFalse() {
    System.out.println("About to assert False");
    assert false;
    System.out.println("Done asserting False");
}

Notice that I'm catching an Error, not an Exception. I'm doing this because Assertions throw a java.lang.AssertionError, not a *Exception.

I'm having trouble finding any documentation in the Javadoc saying that the ScheduledExecutorService swallows exceptions unless you do these things, but through my tests that appears to be the case.