Just Java™ 2

Communicating Mutually Exclusive Threads

Warning: Specialized threads topics ahead

Here's where things become downright complicated until you get familiar with the protocol. This is an advanced section, and you don't need to understand it unless you are tackling sophisticated concurrent programming. You can safely jump over this material to the end of the chapter, returning to study it in depth when you see the words wait/notify in a program.

The hardest kind of programming with threads is when the threads need to pass data back and forth. Imagine that we are in the same situation as the previous section. We have threads that process the same data, so we need to run synchronized. In our new case, however, imagine that it's not enough just ...