ThreadLocal must have knowledge of Java interview questions

The old routine, first listed on ThreadLocal under common question, hoping to solve these problems through this study notes:

ThreadLocal is to solve any problem?
How to use ThreadLocal?
The principle ThreadLocal what is?
Can a few cases of actual projects using the ThreadLocal?

Basics

ThreadLocal thread-local variables, and different common variables are: Each thread holds a copy of this variable can be modified independently (set method) and access (get method) of this variable, and no conflict between threads.

ThreadLocal instance of a class defined in general will be private staticmodified, which would allow state and Thread ThreadLocal instances are bound together, business, usually with some business ThreadLocal package ID (user ID or transaction ID) - ID used by different threads It is not the same.

how to use

case1

From a certain point of view, ThreadLocal provide additional ideas for concurrent programming in Java - Avoid concurrent, if an object itself is not thread-safe, but you want to achieve the effect of multi-threaded synchronous access, such as SimpleDateFormat, you can use ThreadLocal variable.

public class Foo
{
    // SimpleDateFormat is not thread-safe, so give one to each thread
    private static final ThreadLocal<SimpleDateFormat> formatter = new ThreadLocal<SimpleDateFormat>(){
        @Override
        protected SimpleDateFormat initialValue()
        {
            return new SimpleDateFormat("yyyyMMdd HHmm");
        }
    };

    public String formatIt(Date date)
    {
        return formatter.get().format(date);
    }
}

Note that this only needs to initialize once for each thread SimpleDateFormat objects, in fact, followed the custom thread SimpleDateFormat to define a member variable, and new threads when the object is initialized, the effect is the same, but the code so it looks more regular.

case2

When do before yunos cool disk data migration project, we need to follow users to lock dimensions, each thread before the migration process, you need to obtain the current user locks, each key is with the user information, So ThreadLocal variables can be used to achieve:

case3

The following example, we define a MyRunnable object, and this object is MyRunnable thread 1 and thread 2 use, but by internal ThreadLocal variable, each thread access to integers are their own separate copy.

package org.java.learn.concurrent.threadlocal;

/**
 * @author duqi
 * @createTime 2018-12-29 23:25
 **/
public class ThreadLocalExample {
    public static class MyRunnable implements Runnable {

        private ThreadLocal<Integer> threadLocal =
                new ThreadLocal<Integer>();

        @Override
        public void run() {
            threadLocal.set((int) (Math.random() * 100D));

            try {
                Thread.sleep(2000);
            } catch (InterruptedException e) {
            }

            System.out.println(threadLocal.get());
        }
    }


    public static void main(String[] args) throws InterruptedException {
        MyRunnable sharedRunnableInstance = new MyRunnable();

        Thread thread1 = new Thread(sharedRunnableInstance);
        Thread thread2 = new Thread(sharedRunnableInstance);

        thread1.start();
        thread2.start();

        thread1.join(); //wait for thread 1 to terminate
        thread2.join(); //wait for thread 2 to terminate
    }
}

ThreadLocal key knowledge points

Source code analysis

ThreadLocal是如何被线程使用的？原理如下图所示：Thread引用和ThreadLocal引用都在栈上，Thread引用会引用一个ThreadLocalMap对象，这个map中的key是ThreadLocal对象（使用WeakReference包装），value是业务上变量的值。

首先看java.lang.Thread中的代码：

public
class Thread implements Runnable {
    //......其他源码
    /* ThreadLocal values pertaining to this thread. This map is maintained by the ThreadLocal class. */
    ThreadLocal.ThreadLocalMap threadLocals = null;

    /*
     * InheritableThreadLocal values pertaining to this thread. This map is maintained by the InheritableThreadLocal class.
     */
    ThreadLocal.ThreadLocalMap inheritableThreadLocals = null;
    //......其他源码

Thread中的threadLocals变量指向的是一个map，这个map就是ThreadLocal.ThreadLocalMap，里面存放的是跟当前线程绑定的ThreadLocal变量；inheritableThreadLocals的作用相同，里面也是存放的ThreadLocal变量，但是存放的是从当前线程的父线程继承过来的ThreadLocal变量。

在看java.lang.ThreadLocal类，主要的成员和接口如下：

withInitial方法，Java 8以后用于初始化ThreadLocal的一种方法，在外部调用get()方法的时候，会通过Supplier确定变量的初始值；
```
public static <S> ThreadLocal<S> withInitial(Supplier<? extends S> supplier) {
    return new SuppliedThreadLocal<>(supplier);
}
```
get方法，获取当前线程的变量副本，如果当前线程还没有创建该变量的副本，则需要通过调用initialValue方法来设置初始值；get方法的源代码如下，首先通过当前线程获取当前线程对应的map，如果map不为空，则从map中取出对应的Entry，然后取出对应的值；如果map为空，则调用setInitialValue设置初始值；如果map不为空，当前ThreadLocal实例对应的Entry为空，则也需要设置初始值。
```
public T get() {
    Thread t = Thread.currentThread();
    ThreadLocalMap map = getMap(t);
    if (map != null) {
        ThreadLocalMap.Entry e = map.getEntry(this);
        if (e != null) {
            @SuppressWarnings("unchecked")
            T result = (T)e.value;
            return result;
        }
    }
    return setInitialValue();
}
```
set方法，跟get方法一样，先获取当前线程对应的map，如果map为空，则调用createMap创建map，否则将变量的值放入map——key为当前这个ThreadLocal对象，value为变量的值。
```
public void set(T value) {
    Thread t = Thread.currentThread();
    ThreadLocalMap map = getMap(t);
    if (map != null)
        map.set(this, value);
    else
        createMap(t, value);
}
```

remove方法，删除当前线程绑定的这个副本

     public void remove() {
         ThreadLocalMap m = getMap(Thread.currentThread());
         if (m != null)
             m.remove(this);
     }

数字0x61c88647，这个值是HASH_INCREMENT的值，普通的hashmap是使用链表来处理冲突的，但是ThreadLocalMap是使用线性探测法来处理冲突的，HASH_INCREMENT就是每次增加的步长，根据参考资料1所说，选择这个数字是为了让冲突概率最小。

    /**
     * The difference between successively generated hash codes - turns
     * implicit sequential thread-local IDs into near-optimally spread
     * multiplicative hash values for power-of-two-sized tables.
     */
    private static final int HASH_INCREMENT = 0x61c88647;

父子进程数据共享

InheritableThreadLocal主要用于子线程创建时，需要自动继承父线程的ThreadLocal变量，实现子线程访问父线程的threadlocal变量。InheritableThreadLocal继承了ThreadLocal，并重写了childValue、getMap、createMap三个方法。

public class InheritableThreadLocal<T> extends ThreadLocal<T> {
    /**
     * 创建线程的时候，如果需要继承且父线程中Thread-Local变量，则需要将父线程中的ThreadLocal变量一次拷贝过来。
     */
    protected T childValue(T parentValue) {
        return parentValue;
    }

    /**
    * 由于重写了getMap，所以在操作InheritableThreadLocal变量的时候，将只操作Thread类中的inheritableThreadLocals变量，与threadLocals变量没有关系
    **/
    ThreadLocalMap getMap(Thread t) {
       return t.inheritableThreadLocals;
    }

    /**
     * 跟getMap类似，set或getInheritableThreadLocal变量的时候，将只操作Thread类中的inheritableThreadLocals变量
     */
    void createMap(Thread t, T firstValue) {
        t.inheritableThreadLocals = new ThreadLocalMap(this, firstValue);
    }
}

关于childValue多说两句，拷贝是如何发生的？
首先看Thread.init方法，

    private void init(ThreadGroup g, Runnable target, String name, long stackSize, AccessControlContext acc, boolean inheritThreadLocals) {
        //其他源码
        if (inheritThreadLocals && parent.inheritableThreadLocals != null)
            this.inheritableThreadLocals =
                ThreadLocal.createInheritedMap(parent.inheritableThreadLocals);
        /* Stash the specified stack size in case the VM cares */
        this.stackSize = stackSize;

        /* Set thread ID */
        tid = nextThreadID();
    }

然后看ThreadLocal.createInheritedMap方法，最终会调用到newThreadLocalMap方法，这里InheritableThreadLocal对childValue做了重写，可以看出，这里确实是将父线程关联的ThreadLocalMap中的内容依次拷贝到子线程的ThreadLocalMap中了。

       private ThreadLocalMap(ThreadLocalMap parentMap) {
            Entry[] parentTable = parentMap.table;
            int len = parentTable.length;
            setThreshold(len);
            table = new Entry[len];

            for (int j = 0; j < len; j++) {
                Entry e = parentTable[j];
                if (e != null) {
                    @SuppressWarnings("unchecked")
                    ThreadLocal<Object> key = (ThreadLocal<Object>) e.get();
                    if (key != null) {
                        Object value = key.childValue(e.value);
                        Entry c = new Entry(key, value);
                        int h = key.threadLocalHashCode & (len - 1);
                        while (table[h] != null)
                            h = nextIndex(h, len);
                        table[h] = c;
                        size++;
                    }
                }
            }
        }

ThreadLocal对象何时被回收？

ThreadLocalMap中的key是ThreadLocal对象，然后ThreadLocal对象时被WeakReference包装的，这样当没有强引用指向该ThreadLocal对象之后，或者说Map中的ThreadLocal对象被判定为弱引用可达时，就会在垃圾收集中被回收掉。看下Entry的定义：

 static class Entry extends WeakReference<ThreadLocal<?>> {
     /** The value associated with this ThreadLocal. */
     Object value;

     Entry(ThreadLocal<?> k, Object v) {
         super(k);
         value = v;
     }
}

ThreadLocal和线程池一起使用？

ThreadLocal对象的生命周期跟线程的生命周期一样长，那么如果将ThreadLocal对象和线程池一起使用，就可能会遇到这种情况：一个线程的ThreadLocal对象会和其他线程的ThreadLocal对象串掉，一般不建议将两者一起使用。

案例学习

Dubbo in the use of ThreadLocal

I find examples from Dubbo in ThreadLocal, which is mainly used in the scene requested cache, the specific code as follows:

@Activate(group = {Constants.CONSUMER, Constants.PROVIDER}, value = Constants.CACHE_KEY)
public class CacheFilter implements Filter {

    private CacheFactory cacheFactory;

    public void setCacheFactory(CacheFactory cacheFactory) {
        this.cacheFactory = cacheFactory;
    }

    @Override
    public Result invoke(Invoker<?> invoker, Invocation invocation) throws RpcException {
        if (cacheFactory != null && ConfigUtils.isNotEmpty(invoker.getUrl().getMethodParameter(invocation.getMethodName(), Constants.CACHE_KEY))) {
            Cache cache = cacheFactory.getCache(invoker.getUrl(), invocation);
            if (cache != null) {
                String key = StringUtils.toArgumentString(invocation.getArguments());
                Object value = cache.get(key);
                if (value != null) {
                    if (value instanceof ValueWrapper) {
                        return new RpcResult(((ValueWrapper)value).get());
                    } else {
                        return new RpcResult(value);
                    }
                }
                Result result = invoker.invoke(invocation);
                if (!result.hasException()) {
                    cache.put(key, new ValueWrapper(result.getValue()));
                }
                return result;
            }
        }
        return invoker.invoke(invocation);
    }

It can be seen on the RPC call (invoke) link, will first use the request parameters to determine whether the current thread has just been launched by invoking the same argument - this call will be used ThreadLocalCache saved. Specifically see, ThreadLocalCache to achieve the following:

package org.apache.dubbo.cache.support.threadlocal;

import org.apache.dubbo.cache.Cache;
import org.apache.dubbo.common.URL;

import java.util.HashMap;
import java.util.Map;

/**
 * ThreadLocalCache
 */
public class ThreadLocalCache implements Cache {

    //ThreadLocal里存放的是参数到结果的映射
    private final ThreadLocal<Map<Object, Object>> store;

    public ThreadLocalCache(URL url) {
        this.store = new ThreadLocal<Map<Object, Object>>() {
            @Override
            protected Map<Object, Object> initialValue() {
                return new HashMap<Object, Object>();
            }
        };
    }

    @Override
    public void put(Object key, Object value) {
        store.get().put(key, value);
    }

    @Override
    public Object get(Object key) {
        return store.get().get(key);
    }

}

RocketMQ

In RocketMQ, I also found a ThreadLocal figure, it is used in a scene messages sent, MQClientAPIImpl is RMQ responsible to send messages to achieve server, which has a step necessary to select a specific queue, select a specific queue when a different thread has its own index value responsible ThreadLocal mechanism used here, you can look to achieve ThreadLocalIndex of:

package org.apache.rocketmq.client.common;

import java.util.Random;

public class ThreadLocalIndex {
    private final ThreadLocal<Integer> threadLocalIndex = new ThreadLocal<Integer>();
    private final Random random = new Random();

    public int getAndIncrement() {
        Integer index = this.threadLocalIndex.get();
        if (null == index) {
            index = Math.abs(random.nextInt());
            if (index < 0)
                index = 0;
            this.threadLocalIndex.set(index);
        }

        index = Math.abs(index + 1);
        if (index < 0)
            index = 0;

        this.threadLocalIndex.set(index);
        return index;
    }

    @Override
    public String toString() {
        return "ThreadLocalIndex{" +
            "threadLocalIndex=" + threadLocalIndex.get() +
            '}';
    }
}

to sum up

This article is mainly to solve several issues concerning the ThreadLocal: (1) the specific concept is what? (2) the use of Java in the development of what the scene? The principle (3) ThreadLocal is like? (4) open source projects in which case you can refer to? I do not know whether these few questions you have some understanding of it? If you have questions, please exchange.

Reference material

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