Tuesday 4 July 2017

Java Advanced Tools - Errata for Thread Safety

In Chapter 20 of the Java Advanced Topics course (the video on Synchronization and Thread Safety), at about 20 mins 15 seconds, I explain that you tend to use the synchronized keyword with the smallest possible code block. I demonstrate this with the following code:


Unfortunately, for the example we have been looking at, this wouldn’t be thread safe! It would be possible, if a thread was interrupted after the synchronized block, but before the return statement, for 2 threads to be given the same number.


Thank you to one of our customers who pointed this out today – the synchronized keyword needs to be around the minimum part of the code that should not be interrupted. In this example it would need to be the entire method.