7. Thread Lifecycle

1. Thread Lifecycle.

• A java thread can be in any of following thread states during it’s life cycle i.e. New, Runnable, Blocked, Waiting, Timed Waiting or Terminated.
• These are also called life cycle events of a thread in java.

Java Code	Thread State
MyThread thread = new MyThread();	New
thread.start(); start() logic Thread Scheduler will allocates space and executes run()	Runnable
Calling blocking methods wait(), join(),	Wait
Synchronized area	Blocked
wait(ms), sleep(ms)	TIMED WAITING
completion of run()	Terminated / Dead

1.  New/Born

• As soon as, you create new thread, it’s in NEW state.
• It remains in this state until the program starts the thread using it’s start() method.                 MyThread thread = new MyThread();
• At this point, thread is not alive and it’s a state internal to Java programming.

2. Runnable ~ Ready + Running

• Calling start() method on thread put it in RUNNABLE state.
• At this point, execution control is passed to thread scheduler to finish it’s execution.
• Thread scheduler decide from this point that this thread should be executed or should be put on hold to give chance to other runnable threads.
• Thread scheduling is platform dependent — the behavior of a multi-threaded program could vary across different Java implementations.
• In most operating systems, each thread is given a small amount of processor time is called a quantum or timeslice with which to perform its task.
• A task utilizing it’s quantum is said to be in RUNNING state.
• When its quantum expires, the thread returns to the RUNNABLE state, and the operating system assigns another thread to the processor.
  
• The process that an operating system uses to determine which thread to execute is called thread scheduling and is dependent on thread priorities.
• The operating system hide the RUNNABLE and RUNNING states from the Java Virtual Machine (JVM), which sees only the RUNNABLE state.

3. Blocked

• A RUNNABLE thread transitions to the BLOCKED state when it attempts to perform a task that cannot be completed immediately and it must temporarily wait until that task completes.
• For example, when a thread issues an input/output request, the operating system blocks the thread from executing until that I/O request completes.
• At that point, the blocked thread transitions to the RUNNABLE state, so it can resume execution. A blocked thread cannot use a processor, even if one is available.
• If Synchronized areas also threads will block for locks.

4. Waiting

• A thread can be put in waiting state for various reasons e.g. calling it’s wait(), join() method.
• Usually program put a thread in WAIT state because something else needs to be done prior to what current thread is doing.
• Once the thread wait state is over or it is, it’s state is changed to RUNNABLE and it’s moved back to thread pool.

5. Timed Waiting

• A RUNNABLE thread can transition to the TIMED WAITING state if it provides an optional wait interval when it’s waiting for another thread to perform a task.
• You can put a java thread in TIMED WAITING state by calling it’s sleep(long millis) method or wait(long millis) method.
• Such a thread returns to the RUNNABLE state when it’s notified by another thread or when the timed interval expires whichever comes first.
• Timed waiting threads and waiting threads cannot use a processor, even if one is available.

6. Terminated

• A thread enters the TERMINATED state (sometimes called the dead state) when it successfully completes its task or otherwise terminated due to any error or even it was forcefully killed.

2. How to print Thread state.

• By calling getState() from thread object to get state of the thread.
• In thread class given inbuilt enum for thread states for comparison.
• If we want to write the logic according to the thread state then
  if(t1.getState().toString() == “TIMED_WAITING”){........}
• In above case we need to convert state to string, it is waste of time, so java given one more way to compare thread states.
• Thread.State is the enum name.
  if(Thread.State.TIMED_WAITING   ==  t1.getState()){...}

3. Sample program for printing thread states.

public class ThreadDemo extends Thread{ public void run() { System.out.println("i am in run() "+Thread.currentThread().getName()); try { this.join(2000l); } catch (InterruptedException e) { e.printStackTrace(); } m(); System.out.println("end of run() "+Thread.currentThread().getName()); } synchronized void m(){ try { Thread.sleep(2000l); } catch (InterruptedException e) { e.printStackTrace(); } System.out.println(this.getState()); } public static void main(String[] args) throws InterruptedException { ThreadDemo t1 = new ThreadDemo(); ThreadDemo t2 = new ThreadDemo(); t1.start(); t2.start(); Thread.sleep(5000l); System.out.println("t1 "+t1.getState()); System.out.println(Thread.State.TIMED_WAITING ==t2.getState()); } }