From 85a1bcfb2ea41035474a50f92ac0c050597335aa Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Sergei Egorov <segorov@pivotal.io>
Date: Fri, 31 Jan 2020 17:27:09 +0100
Subject: [PATCH] Add Tips & Tricks

---
 docs/README.md |   1 +
 docs/tips.md   | 102 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
 2 files changed, 103 insertions(+)
 create mode 100644 docs/tips.md

diff --git a/docs/README.md b/docs/README.md
index 09185ab..a320834 100644
--- a/docs/README.md
+++ b/docs/README.md
@@ -4,3 +4,4 @@
 * [Customization](customization.md)
 * [How it works](how_it_works.md)
 * [Writing custom integrations](custom_integrations.md)
+* [Tips & Tricks](tips.md)
diff --git a/docs/tips.md b/docs/tips.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..7dbd6c4
--- /dev/null
+++ b/docs/tips.md
@@ -0,0 +1,102 @@
+# Tips & Tricks
+
+## Adding BlockHound to your tests
+
+When you add BlockHound, **make sure to add a test that will assert the integration.**
+Otherwise, you may get false positives due to the incorrectly installed agent (or not installed at all!).
+
+The simpliest test using Project Reactor would look like this:
+```java
+@Test
+public void blockHoundWorks() {
+    try {
+        FutureTask<?> task = new FutureTask<>(() -> {
+            Thread.sleep(0);
+            return "";
+        });
+        Schedulers.parallel().schedule(task);
+
+        task.get(10, TimeUnit.SECONDS);
+        Assert.fail("should fail");
+    } catch (ExecutionException e) {
+        Assert.assertTrue("detected", e.getCause() instanceof BlockingOperationError);
+    }
+}
+```
+
+## Debugging
+
+If your tests hang after adding BlockHound, it may be that some blocking call is detected
+and the event loop didn't handle the error properly.  
+Even worse if there is `try {} catch {}` that ignores (swallows) the error. 
+
+If you see such behaviour, **consider [overriding the callback](customization.md) and printing instead of throwing:**
+```java
+builder.blockingMethodCallback(it -> {
+    new Exception(it.toString()).printStackTrace();
+});
+```
+
+This way you will run BlockHound in a "soft mode" where blocking operations
+are detected but won't cause the code to fail and help you to pinpoint the issue.
+
+But don't forget to change it back after debugging!
+
+## How to select what to whitelist
+
+Sometimes some calls have to be whitelisted and cannot be avoided.
+
+BlockHound provides an API to whitelist them, but you have to be careful!  
+**Whitelisting a common method (think `Thread#run`) may cause false positives!**
+
+Instead, whitelist the least common denominator you can find by iterating
+the stacktrace of the reported call.
+
+Consider the following code:
+```java
+class OperationRunnable implements Runnable {
+
+    TaskRunner runner;
+
+    public void run() {
+        while (true) {
+            runner.run();
+        }
+    }
+}
+
+class TaskRunner {
+
+    TaskExecutor executor;
+
+    public void run() {
+        var task = executor.takeTask();
+
+        task.run();
+    }
+} 
+```
+
+And the following stacktrace:
+```java
+java.lang.Error: sun.misc.Unsafe#park
+    at sun.misc.Unsafe.park(Unsafe.java)
+    at java.util.concurrent.locks.LockSupport.parkNanos(LockSupport.java:215)
+    at java.util.concurrent.locks.AbstractQueuedSynchronizer$ConditionObject.awaitNanos(AbstractQueuedSynchronizer.java:2078)
+    at java.util.concurrent.LinkedBlockingQueue.poll(LinkedBlockingQueue.java:467)
+    at com.example.TaskExecutor.takeTask(GlobalEventExecutor.java:95)
+    at com.example.TaskExecutor$TaskRunner.run(GlobalEventExecutor.java:239)
+    at com.example.OperationRunnable.run(OperationRunnable.java:30)
+    at com.example.NonBlockingThread.run(NonBlockingThread.java:18)
+```
+
+Whitelisting `NonBlockingThread#run`, `OperationRunnable#run` or even `TaskRunner#run` would
+prevent BlockHound from detecting blocking code in the tasks.
+
+Whitelisting `LinkedBlockingQueue#poll` or `LockSupport#parkNanos` would affect
+other places that may call this API and actually block what shouldn't be blocked.
+
+This is why the best candidate to be whitelisted is `TaskExecutor#takeTask` (unless this is public API!).  
+It is blocking, but we need it to run our task polling logic.  
+Since `TaskExecutor#takeTask` does not call any user provided code, we know how it will behave
+and can safely whitelist it.
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