Synchronising twice on the same object?

java multithreading synchronization mutex
Omar Kooheji picture Omar Kooheji · Oct 30, 2008 · Viewed 13.7k times · Source

I was wondering if in Java I would get any odd behaviour if I synchronise twice on the same object?

The scenario is as follows

pulbic class SillyClassName {

    object moo;
    ...
    public void method1(){
        synchronized(moo)
        {
            ....
            method2();
            ....
        }
    }

    public void method2(){
        synchronized(moo)
        {
            doStuff();
        }
    }
}

Both methods use the object and are synchronised on it. Will the second method when called by the first method stop because it's locked?

I don't think so because it's the same thread but I'm unsure of any other odd results that might occur.

Answer

Leigh picture Leigh · Oct 30, 2008

Reentrant

Synchronized blocks use reentrant locks, which means if the thread already holds the lock, it can re-aquire it without problems. Therefore your code will work as you expect.

See the bottom of the Java Tutorial page Intrinsic Locks and Synchronization.

To quote as of 2015-01…

Reentrant Synchronization

Recall that a thread cannot acquire a lock owned by another thread. But a thread can acquire a lock that it already owns. Allowing a thread to acquire the same lock more than once enables reentrant synchronization. This describes a situation where synchronized code, directly or indirectly, invokes a method that also contains synchronized code, and both sets of code use the same lock. Without reentrant synchronization, synchronized code would have to take many additional precautions to avoid having a thread cause itself to block.

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