|
The ThreadLocal class
appeared with little fanfare
in version 1.2 of the Java
platform. While support for
thread-local variables has
long been a part of many
threading facilities, such
as the Posix pthreads
facility, the initial design
of the Java Threads
API lacked this useful
feature. Further, the
initial implementation was
quite inefficient. For these
reasons, ThreadLocal gets
relatively little attention,
but it can be very handy for
simplifying the development
of thread-safe concurrent
programs. This article
examines ThreadLocal and
offers tips for exploiting
its power.
Date: Oct, 17 2001 |