Dr.

SNS Rajalakhsmi College of Arts and Science

(An Autonomous Co-Education Institution)
Coimbatore – 641049
www.drsnsrcas.ac.in

THREADS IN JAVA

Presentation by
Mrs.S.Janani
Assistant Professor
Department of Information Technology
[email protected]
Department of

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Technology
Drsnsrcas/CPreprocessor/April 27, 2024 Slide No : 1
 INTRODUCTION
A sequential (or single-threaded) program is one that, when executed, has
only one single flow of control.
i.e., at any time instant, there is at most only one instruction (or
statement or execution point) that is being executed in the program.

A multi-threaded program is one that can have multiple flows of control when
executed.

At some time instance, there may exist multiple instructions or execution

points) that are being executed in the program
Ex: in a Web browser we may do the following tasks at the same time:
1. scroll a page,
2. download an applet or image,
3. play sound,
4 print a page.

A thread is a single sequential flow of control within a program.

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Drsnsrcas/CPreprocessor/April 27, 2024 Slide No : 2
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 PROGRAM

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Slide No : 4
 single-threaded vs multithreaded
programs

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 LIFE CYCLE OF THREAD

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Slide No : 7
 Define and launch a java thread

Each Java Run time thread is encapsulated in a

java.lang.Thread instance.
Two ways to define a thread:
1. Extend the Thread class
2. Implement the Runnable interface :
package java.lang;
public interface Runnable
{
public void run() ;
}
Steps for extending the Thread class:
1. Subclass the Thread class;
2. Override the default Thread method run(), which
is the entry point of the thread, like the
main(String[]) method in a java program.

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Slide No :8
 Methods for current thread accesses

static Thread currentThread()

Returns a reference to the currently executing
thread object.
static boolean holdsLock(Object obj)
Returns true if and only if the current thread holds
the monitor lock on the specified object.
static boolean interrupted()
Tests whether the current thread has been
interrupted.
static void sleep( [ long millis [, int nanos ]] )
Causes the currently executing thread to sleep
(cease execution) for the specified time.
static void yield()
Causes the currently executing thread object to
temporarily pause and allow other threads to
execute.
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 EXAMPLE

public class SimpleThread extends Thread {

public SimpleThread(String str) { super(str); }
public void run() {
for (int i = 0; i < 10; i++) {
System.out.println(i + " " + getName());
try { // at this point, current thread is ‘this’.
Thread.sleep((long)(Math.random() *
1000));
} catch (InterruptedException e) {}
}
System.out.println("DONE! " + getName());
} }

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Slide No :10
 TO LAUNCH A THREAD

1. create an instance of [ a subclass of ] of Thread, say

thread.
1. Thread thread = new Print2Console();
2. Thread thread = new Thread( new Print2GUI( .. ) );

2. call its start() method, thread.start();. // note: not call run() !!

Ex:
Printer2Console t1 = new Print2Console(); // t1 is a thread
instance !
t1.start() ; // this will start a new thread, which begins its
execution by calling t1.run()
… // parent thread continue immediately here without
waiting for the child thread to complete its execution.
cf: t1.run();
Print2GUI jtext = new Print2GUI();
Thread t2 = new Thread( jtext);
t2.start();
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Slide No :11
 LIFE CYCLE OF THREAD

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Slide No :12
 Thread synchronization

Problem with any multithreaded Java program :

Two or more Thread objects access the same
pieces of data.
too little or no synchronization ==> there is
inconsistency, loss or corruption of data.
too much synchronization ==> deadlock or system
frozen.
In between there is unfair processing where several
threads can starve another one hogging all resources
between themselves.

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Slide No :13
 Thread synchronization

Java use the monitor concept to achieve mutual

exclusion and synchronization between threads.
Synchronized methods /statements guarantee mutual
exclusion.
Mutual exclusion may cause a thread to be unable
to complete its task. So monitor allow a thread to
wait until state change and then continue its work.
wait(), notify() and notifyAll() control the synchronization
of threads.
Allow one thread to wait for a condition (logical
state) and another to set it and then notify waiting
threads.
condition variables => instance boolean
variables
wait => wait();
notifying => notify(); notifyAll();
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Slide No :14
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