开课吧Java课堂：如何使用isAlive()和join()

如何创建线程？如何创建扩展Thread类？
如何创建线程？如何实现Runnable接口？
如前两篇文章所述，通常你希望主线程最后结束。在前面的例子中，这点是通过在main()中调用sleep()来实现的，经过足够长时间的延迟以确保所有子线程都先于主线程结束。

然而，这不是一个令人满意的解决方法，它也带来一个大问题：一个线程如何知道另一线程已经结束？幸运的是，Thread类提供了回答此问题的方法。

有两种方法可以判定一个线程是否结束。第一，可以在线程中调用isAlive()。这种方法由Thread定义，它的通常形式如下：

final boolean isAlive( ) 

如果所调用线程仍在运行，isAlive()方法返回true，如果不是则返回false。 但isAlive（）很少用到，等待线程结束的更常用的方法是调用join()，描述如下：

final void join( ) throws InterruptedException

该方法等待所调用线程结束。该名字来自于要求线程等待直到指定线程参与的概念。join()的附加形式允许给等待指定线程结束定义一个最大时间。

下面是前面例子的改进版本。运用join()以确保主线程最后结束。同样，它也演示了isAlive()方法。

// Using join() to wait for threads to finish. 
class NewThread implements Runnable { 
 String name; // name of thread 
 Thread t; 
 NewThread(String threadname) { 
 name = threadname; 
 t = new Thread(this, name); 
 System.out.println("New thread: " + t); 
 t.start(); // Start the thread 
 } 
 // This is the entry point for thread. 
 public void run() { 
 try { 
 for(int i = 5; i > 0; i--) { 
 System.out.println(name + ": " + i); 
 Thread.sleep(1000); 
 } 
 } catch (InterruptedException e) { 
 System.out.println(name + " interrupted."); 
 } 
 System.out.println(name + " exiting."); 
 } 
} 
class DemoJoin { 
 public static void main(String args[]) { 
 NewThread ob1 = new NewThread("One"); 
 NewThread ob2 = new NewThread("Two"); 
 NewThread ob3 = new NewThread("Three"); 
 System.out.println("Thread One is alive: " 
 + ob1.t.isAlive()); 
 System.out.println("Thread Two is alive: " 
 + ob2.t.isAlive()); 
 System.out.println("Thread Three is alive: " 
 + ob3.t.isAlive()); 
 // wait for threads to finish 
 try { 
 System.out.println("Waiting for threads to finish."); 
 ob1.t.join(); 
 ob2.t.join(); 
 ob3.t.join(); 
 } catch (InterruptedException e) { 
 System.out.println("Main thread Interrupted"); 
 } 
 System.out.println("Thread One is alive: " 
 + ob1.t.isAlive()); 
 System.out.println("Thread Two is alive: " 
 + ob2.t.isAlive()); 
 System.out.println("Thread Three is alive: " 
 + ob3.t.isAlive()); 
 System.out.println("Main thread exiting."); 
 } 
}

程序输出如下所示:

New thread: Thread[One,5,main] 
New thread: Thread[Two,5,main] 
New thread: Thread[Three,5,main] 
Thread One is alive: true 
Thread Two is alive: true 
Thread Three is alive: true 
Waiting for threads to finish. 
One: 5 
Two: 5 
Three: 5 
One: 4 
Two: 4 
Three: 4 
One: 3 
Two: 3 
Three: 3 
One: 2 
Two: 2 
Three: 2 
One: 1 
Two: 1 
Three: 1 
Two exiting. 
Three exiting. 
One exiting. 
Thread One is alive: false 
Thread Two is alive: false 
Thread Three is alive: false 
Main thread exiting. 

如你所见，调用join()后返回，线程终止执行。