Introduction to Multithreading

Introduction to Multithreading

Many applications can run on the same computer at the same time. Each instance, in the running condition, is known as process. Each process can have one or more threads. A  thread is a sequence of code, this code is often responsible for one aspect of the program, or one task a program has been given. For instance a program doing a complex long calculation may split into two threads, one to keep a user interface responsive, and one (or more) to progress through the lengthy calculation.

Java has a built in support for multithreading programming. A multithreading is a specialized form of multitasking. Multitasking threads require less overhead than multitasking processes.

Life Cycle of a Thread

A thread has various stages during it's life cycle. For example, a thread is born, started, runs, and then dies. Given below diagram contains various stages during it's life cycle :

The description of the stages of a thread during it's life cycle are given below :

Thread Priorities

In java, each thread has a priority. It helps the operating system determine the order in which threads are scheduled.

Threads with higher priority are more important to a program and should be allocated processor time before lower-priority threads. However, thread priorities cannot guarantee the order in which threads execute and very much platform dependent. Java priorities are in the range between MIN_PRIORITY (a constant of 1) and MAX_PRIORITY (a constant of 10). By default, every thread is given priority NORM_PRIORITY (a constant of 5).

Thread Creation

You can create Thread in two ways :

• By implementing the Runnable Interface
• By extending the Thread class itself.

Creating Thread by implementing Runnable

This is the easiest way for creating thread. For this you need to create a class that implements the Runnable interface. Given below example demonstrate about this:

class ThreadDemo implements Runnable {
	Thread t;

	ThreadDemo() {
		// Create a new, second thread
		t = new Thread(this, "Demo Thread");
		System.out.println("Child thread: " + t);
		t.start(); // Start the thread
	}

	// This is the entry point for the second thread.
	public void run() {
		try {
			for (int i = 5; i > 0; i--) {
				System.out.println("Child Thread: " + i);
				// Let the thread sleep for a while.
				Thread.sleep(500);
			}
		} catch (InterruptedException e) {
			System.out.println("Child interrupted.");
		}
		System.out.println("Exiting child thread.");
	}
}

public class ThreadRunnableDemo {
	public static void main(String args[]) {
		new ThreadRunnableDemo(); // create a new thread
		try {
			for (int i = 5; i > 0; i--) {
				System.out.println("Main Thread: " + i);
				Thread.sleep(1000);

			}
		} catch (InterruptedException e) {
			System.out.println("Main thread interrupted.");
		}
		new ThreadDemo();
		System.out.println("Main thread exiting.");
	}

}

Output :

Create Thread By extending Thread

You can also create Thread by extending it. For this need to create a new class that extends Thread, and then to create an instance of that class. Given below the demonstration of this :

class NewThread extends Thread {
	NewThread() {
		// Create a new, second thread
		super("Demo Thread");
		System.out.println("Child thread: " + this);
		start(); // Start the thread
	}

	// This is the entry point for the second thread.
	public void run() {
		try {
			for (int i = 5; i > 0; i--) {
				System.out.println("Child Thread: " + i);
				// Let the thread sleep for a while.
				Thread.sleep(500);
			}
		} catch (InterruptedException e) {
			System.out.println("Child interrupted.");
		}
		System.out.println("Exiting child thread.");
	}
}

public class ThreadExtendDemo {
	public static void main(String args[]) {
		new NewThread(); // create a new thread
		try {
			for (int i = 5; i > 0; i--) {
				System.out.println("Main Thread: " + i);
				Thread.sleep(1000);
			}
		} catch (InterruptedException e) {
			System.out.println("Main thread interrupted.");
		}
		System.out.println("Main thread exiting.");
	}
}

Output :

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