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.