What is the "volatile" keyword used for?
I read some articles about the volatile keyword but I could not figure out its correct usage. Could you please tell me what it should be used for in C# and in Java?
Answer
Consider this example:
int i = 5;
System.out.println(i);
The compiler may optimize this to just print 5, like this:
System.out.println(5);
However, if there is another thread which can change i, this is the wrong behaviour. If another thread changes i to be 6, the optimized version will still print 5.
The volatile keyword prevents such optimization and caching, and thus is useful when a variable can be changed by another thread.