Question

In others words I don’t want a thread to wait if it cannot access the lock (as in synchonization), I want to thread execution to simply return immediately at that point if it cannot obtain the lock.

As simple boolean lock like this would potentially allow more than one thread to access.

private static boolean lockAvailable = true;

private boolean acquireLock() {
  if(lockAvailable) {
    lockAvailable = false;
    return true;
  }
  return false;
}

Am I missing something? What is the best/simplest way to achieve this?

Edit:

Thanks for pointing out Semaphore (!)

So looking at it again this code is bullet proof?

private final static Semaphore lock = new Semaphore(1, true);   

public void tryAndDoSomething() {
  if(lock.tryAcquire()) {
    try {
      // only single thread can access here at one time
    } finally {
      lock.release();
    }
  }
}

Update:

I realised I needed reentrant capability so I created a simple non blocking reentrant. Posting the code for anyone that is interested in how you might do this. Anyone who wants this type of functionality should of course use the existing Java Class java.util.concurrent.locks.ReentrantLock 😐

import java.util.concurrent.atomic.AtomicBoolean;
import java.util.concurrent.atomic.AtomicInteger;

/**
 * SimpleNonBlockingLock ensures that only a single thread can call protected code at any one time,
 * while allowing other threads to by pass the protected code if the lock is unavailable.
 * The thread owning the lock can access any code protected by the lock (the lock is 'reentrant').
 * To function correctly the protected code must be executed in a try/finally blocks. The
 * finally block must call the tryRelease. Example code:
 * 
 *  private final SimpleNonBlockingLock lock = new SimpleNonBlockingLock();
 * 
 *  if(lock.tryAcquire()) {
 *      try {
 *              // access protected code
 *      } finally {
 *          lock.tryRelease();
 *      }
 *  }
 *
 * This code is for demonstration only and should not be used. I have tested it and it 'seems to' work.
 * However it may contain horrific bugs!
 * 
 * The Java class java.util.concurrent.locks.ReentrantLock has been around since Java 5.0 and contains all (and more) 
 * of this functionality. Its also been thoroughly tested!
 */
public class SimpleNonBlockingLock {

    // Atomic locking mechanism
    private final AtomicBoolean locked = new AtomicBoolean();

    // Atomic integer containing the next thread ID to be assigned
    private static final AtomicInteger nextId = new AtomicInteger(0);

    // Unique ID of thread which currently has lock
    private int threadUniqueId = -1;

    // Tracks number of tryAcquire calls made by thread with lock
    private int lockCount = 0;

    // Thread local variable containing each thread's ID
    private static final ThreadLocal<Integer> threadId = new ThreadLocal<Integer>() {
            @Override protected Integer initialValue() {
                return nextId.getAndIncrement();
        }
    };

    public synchronized boolean tryAcquire() {      
        // Allow owning thread to acquire
        if(threadUniqueId == getCurrentThreadUniqueId()) {
            lockCount++;
            return true;
        }       
        // If locked then do not allow
        if (locked.get()) {return false;}           
        // Attempt to acquire lock      
        boolean attemptAcquire = locked.compareAndSet(false, true);     
        // If successful then set threadUniqueId for the thread, and increment lock count
        if(attemptAcquire) {
            threadUniqueId = getCurrentThreadUniqueId();
            lockCount++;
        }       
        // Return result of attempt to acquire lock
        return attemptAcquire;
    }

    public synchronized boolean tryRelease() {
        if (!locked.get()) {
            // Lock is currently available - no need to try and release
            return true;
        } else {
            // Decrement the lock count
            lockCount--;
            // If lock count is zero we release lock, and reset the threadUniqueId
            if(lockCount == 0) {
                threadUniqueId = -1;
                return locked.compareAndSet(true, false);
            } 
            return false;
        }   
    }

    // Returns the current thread's unique ID, assigning it if necessary
    public static int getCurrentThreadUniqueId() {      
        return threadId.get();
    }   
}

Answer 1

Java 5 has introduced explicit locks which have a tryLock operation. So use an explicit lock instead of synchronized blocks, then you can call tryLock:

private Lock lock = ...;

private boolean acquireLock() {
  if (lock.tryLock()) {
      ...
      return true;
  } else {
      return false;
  }
}