What is the purpose of the ThreadLocal class in Java?
Managing data that is unique to each thread can be a challenging task in multi-threaded Java applications. Java’s ThreadLocal class comes to the rescue as a powerful tool for handling thread-specific data.
ThreadLocal provides a straightforward mechanism to store and access data in a way that ensures thread safety. In this article, I will explain the ThreadLocal class in Java, help you explore its purpose, when to use it, when not to use it, and provide specific examples for each scenario.
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What is ThreadLocal?
ThreadLocal is a class in the java.lang package that allows you to create thread-local variables. These variables are unique to each thread. That means each thread accessing a ThreadLocal variable gets its own independent copy. This isolation eliminates synchronization overhead and contention issues. Hence this makes it particularly useful in multi-threaded environments.
