Why is synchronized block better than synchronized method?

java multithreading synchronization
Sabapathy picture Sabapathy · Jan 3, 2014 · Viewed 102.3k times · Source

I have started learning synchronization in threading.

Synchronized method: 

public class Counter {

   private static int count = 0;

   public static synchronized int getCount() {
      return count;
   }

   public synchronized setCount(int count) {
      this.count = count;
   }

}

Synchronized block:

public class Singleton {

   private static volatile Singleton _instance;

   public static Singleton getInstance() {
      if (_instance == null) {
         synchronized(Singleton.class) {
            if (_instance == null)
               _instance = new Singleton();
         }
      }
      return _instance;
   }
}

When should I use synchronized method and synchronized block?

Why is synchronized block better than synchronized method ?

Answer

Erick Robertson picture Erick Robertson · Jan 3, 2014

It's not a matter of better, just different.

When you synchronize a method, you are effectively synchronizing to the object itself. In the case of a static method, you're synchronizing to the class of the object. So the following two pieces of code execute the same way:

public synchronized int getCount() {
    // ...
}

This is just like you wrote this.

public int getCount() {
    synchronized (this) {
        // ...
    }
}

If you want to control synchronization to a specific object, or you only want part of a method to be synchronized to the object, then specify a synchronized block. If you use the synchronized keyword on the method declaration, it will synchronize the whole method to the object or class.

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