Question

Given the following Java code:

public class Test {

    static private class MyThread extends Thread {
        private boolean mustShutdown = false;

        @Override
        public synchronized void run() {
            // loop and do nothing, just wait until we must shut down
            while (!mustShutdown) {
                try {
                    wait();
                } catch (InterruptedException e) {
                    System.out.println("Exception on wait()");
                }
            }
        }

        public synchronized void shutdown() throws InterruptedException {
            // set flag for termination, notify the thread and wait for it to die
            mustShutdown = true;
            notify();
            join(); // lock still being held here, due to 'synchronized'
        }
    }

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        MyThread mt = new MyThread();
        mt.start();

        try {
            Thread.sleep(1000);
            mt.shutdown();
        } catch (InterruptedException e) {
            System.out.println("Exception in main()");
        }
    }
}

Running this will wait for one second and then properly exit. But that is unexpected to me, I expect a dead-lock to happen here.

My reasoning is as follows: The newly created MyThread will execute run(), which is declared as ‘synchronized’, so that it may call wait() and safely read ‘mustShutdown’; during that wait() call, the lock is released and re-acquired upon returning, as described in the documentation of wait(). After one second, the main thread executes shutdown(), which is again synchronized as to not access mustShutdown at the same time as it’s being read by the other thread. It then wakes up the other thread via notify() and the waits for its completion via join().

But in my opinion, there’s no way that the other thread can ever return from wait(), since it needs to re-acquire the lock on the thread object before returning. It cannot do so because shutdown() still holds the lock while inside join(). Why does it still work and exit properly?

Answer 1

join() method internally calls wait() which will result in releasing of the lock(of Thread object).

See the code of join() below:

public final synchronized void join(long millis) 
    throws InterruptedException {
    ....
    if (millis == 0) {
       while (isAlive()) {
         wait(0);  //ends up releasing lock
       }
    }
    ....
}

Reason why your code sees this and not seen in general:: The reason why your code see this and not is not observed in general, is because the join() method waits() on Thread object itself and consequently relinquishes lock on the Thread object itself and as your run() method also synchronizes on the same Thread object, you see this otherwise unexpected scenario.