Transform Java Future into a CompletableFuture

If the library you want to use also offers a callback style method in addition to the Future style, you can provide it a handler that completes the CompletableFuture without any extra thread blocking. Like so:

    AsynchronousFileChannel open = AsynchronousFileChannel.open(Paths.get("/some/file"));
    // ... 
    CompletableFuture<ByteBuffer> completableFuture = new CompletableFuture<ByteBuffer>();
    open.read(buffer, position, null, new CompletionHandler<Integer, Void>() {
        @Override
        public void completed(Integer result, Void attachment) {
            completableFuture.complete(buffer);
        }

        @Override
        public void failed(Throwable exc, Void attachment) {
            completableFuture.completeExceptionally(exc);
        }
    });
    completableFuture.thenApply(...)

Without the callback the only other way I see solving this is to use a polling loop that puts all your Future.isDone() checks on a single thread and then invoking complete whenever a Future is gettable.

There is a way, but you won't like it. The following method transforms a Future<T> into a CompletableFuture<T>:

public static <T> CompletableFuture<T> makeCompletableFuture(Future<T> future) {
  if (future.isDone())
    return transformDoneFuture(future);
  return CompletableFuture.supplyAsync(() -> {
    try {
      if (!future.isDone())
        awaitFutureIsDoneInForkJoinPool(future);
      return future.get();
    } catch (ExecutionException e) {
      throw new RuntimeException(e);
    } catch (InterruptedException e) {
      // Normally, this should never happen inside ForkJoinPool
      Thread.currentThread().interrupt();
      // Add the following statement if the future doesn't have side effects
      // future.cancel(true);
      throw new RuntimeException(e);
    }
  });
}

private static <T> CompletableFuture<T> transformDoneFuture(Future<T> future) {
  CompletableFuture<T> cf = new CompletableFuture<>();
  T result;
  try {
    result = future.get();
  } catch (Throwable ex) {
    cf.completeExceptionally(ex);
    return cf;
  }
  cf.complete(result);
  return cf;
}

private static void awaitFutureIsDoneInForkJoinPool(Future<?> future)
    throws InterruptedException {
  ForkJoinPool.managedBlock(new ForkJoinPool.ManagedBlocker() {
    @Override public boolean block() throws InterruptedException {
      try {
        future.get();
      } catch (ExecutionException e) {
        throw new RuntimeException(e);
      }
      return true;
    }
    @Override public boolean isReleasable() {
      return future.isDone();
    }
  });
}

Obviously, the problem with this approach is, that for each Future, a thread will be blocked to wait for the result of the Future--contradicting the idea of futures. In some cases, it might be possible to do better. However, in general, there is no solution without actively wait for the result of the Future.

If your Future is the result of a call to an ExecutorService method (e.g. submit()), the easiest would be to use the CompletableFuture.runAsync(Runnable, Executor) method instead.

From

Runnbale myTask = ... ;
Future<?> future = myExecutor.submit(myTask);

to

Runnbale myTask = ... ;
CompletableFuture<?> future = CompletableFuture.runAsync(myTask, myExecutor);

The CompletableFuture is then created "natively".

EDIT: Pursuing comments by @SamMefford corrected by @MartinAndersson, if you want to pass a Callable, you need to call supplyAsync(), converting the Callable<T> into a Supplier<T>, e.g. with:

CompletableFuture.supplyAsync(() -> {
    try { return myCallable.call(); }
    catch (Exception ex) { throw new CompletionException(ex); } // Or return default value
}, myExecutor);

Because T Callable.call() throws Exception; throws an exception and T Supplier.get(); doesn't, you have to catch the exception so prototypes are compatible.

A note on exception handling

The get() method doesn't specify a throws, which means it should not throw a checked exception. However, unchecked exception can be used. The code in CompletableFuture shows that CompletionException is used and is unchecked (i.e. is a RuntimeException), hence the catch/throw wrapping any exception into a CompletionException.

Also, as @WeGa indicated, you can use the handle() method to deal with exceptions potentially being thrown by the result:

CompletableFuture<T> future = CompletableFuture.supplyAsync(...);
future.handle((ex,res) -> {
        if (ex != null) {
            // An exception occurred ...
        } else {
            // No exception was thrown, 'res' is valid and can be handled here
        }
    });