Java threads: wait and notify methods

Question

I have a thread that calls the wait method and can only be awoken when the notify method called from some other class:

 class ThreadA {
     public static void main(String [] args) {
         ThreadB b = new ThreadB();
         b.start();

         synchronized(b) {
             try {
                 System.out.println("Waiting for b to complete...");
                 b.wait();
             } catch (InterruptedException e) {}
             System.out.println("Total is: " + b.total);
         }
     }
 }

class ThreadB extends Thread {
    int total;
    public void run() {
        synchronized(this) {
            for(int i=0;i<100;i++) {
                total += i;
            }
            notify();
        }
    }
}

In the above code if the synchronized block in main, if the ThreadA does not execute first and instead the other synchronization block executing and completes to completion, then ThreadA executes its synchronized block and calls wait, what is going to happen and how it will be notified again?

Answer 1

If ThreadB gets through its synchronized block before ThreadA does, then ThreadA will block indefinitely on the call to wait. It won't somehow be notified that the other thread has already completed.

The problem is that you're trying to use wait and notify in ways that they are not designed to be used. Usually, wait and notify are used to have one thread wait until some condition is true, and then to have another thread signal that the condition may have become true. For example, they're often used as follows:

/* Producer */
synchronized (obj) {
    /* Make resource available. */
    obj.notify();
}

/* Consumer */
synchronized (obj) {
    while (/* resource not available */)
        obj.wait();

    /* Consume the resource. */
}

The reason that the above code works is that it doesn't matter which thread runs first. If the producer thread creates a resource and no one is waiting on obj, then when the consumer runs it will enter the while loop, notice that the resource has been produced, and then skip the call to wait. It can then consume the resource. If, on the other hand, the consumer runs first, it will notice in the while loop that the resource is not yet available and will wait for some other object to notify it. The other thread can then run, produce the resource, and notify the consumer thread that the resource is available. Once the original thread is awoken, it will notice that the condition of the loop is no longer true and will consume the resource.

More generally, Java suggests that you always call wait in a loop because of spurious notifications in which a thread can wake up from a call to wait without ever being notified of anything. Using the above pattern can prevent this.

In your particular instance, if you want to ensure that ThreadB has finished running before ThreadA executes, you may want to use Thread.join(), which explicitly blocks the calling thread until some other thread executes. More generally, you may want to look into some of the other synchronization primitives provided by Java, as they often are much easier to use than wait and notify.