Java随笔2-InheritableThreadLocal

阅读本文前，需要了解

① ThreadLocal的特性，参考：Java随笔1-ThreadLocal

② Inheritable：adj. 可继承的；会遗传的

1、特性

相比ThreadLocal，InheritableThreadLocal有什么特性？可从以下demo窥探一二：

import org.junit.Test;

import java.util.concurrent.CountDownLatch;

public class InheritableTLTest {


    InheritableThreadLocal<String> inheritableTL = new InheritableThreadLocal<>();

    ThreadLocal<String> threadLocal = new ThreadLocal<>();


    @Test
    public void compare() throws InterruptedException {
        threadLocal.set("祖先1");
        inheritableTL.set("祖先2");

        CountDownLatch latch = new CountDownLatch(2);
        new Thread(() -> {
            System.out.println("threadLocal, 儿子线程取出:" + threadLocal.get());
            System.out.println("inheritableTL, 儿子线程取出:" + inheritableTL.get() + "\n");

            threadLocal.set("儿子1");
            inheritableTL.set("儿子2");
            latch.countDown();
            new Thread(() -> {
                System.out.println("threadLocal, 孙子线程取出:" + threadLocal.get());
                System.out.println("inheritableTL, 孙子线程取出:" + inheritableTL.get() + "\n");

                threadLocal.set("孙子1");
                inheritableTL.set("孙子2");
                latch.countDown();
            }).start();
        }).start();

        latch.await();
        System.out.println("threadLocal, 主线程取出:" + threadLocal.get());
        System.out.println("inheritableTL, 主线程取出:" + inheritableTL.get());
    }
}

 demo执行结果如下：

threadLocal, 儿子线程取出:null
inheritableTL, 儿子线程取出:祖先2

threadLocal, 孙子线程取出:null
inheritableTL, 孙子线程取出:儿子2

threadLocal, 主线程取出:祖先1
inheritableTL, 主线程取出:祖先2

从结果看出，主线程设置了“祖先信息”，能通过InheritableThreadLocal传递给了儿子线程，无法通过ThreadLocal传递给儿子线程；儿子线程与孙子线程之间的传递同样如此。另外，儿子、孙子线程修改了变量，并不影响最后的主线程拿到最初设置的信息。

结论：相比ThreadLocal，InheritableThreadLocal可以在父子线程之间传递数据。

2、原理

Thread部分源码如下：

public class Thread implements Runnable {

    private Runnable target;

    ThreadLocal.ThreadLocalMap threadLocals = null;

    ThreadLocal.ThreadLocalMap inheritableThreadLocals = null;

    public Thread(Runnable target) {
        init(null, target, "Thread-" + nextThreadNum(), 0);
    }

    private void init(ThreadGroup g, Runnable target, String name,
                      long stackSize) {
        init(g, target, name, stackSize, null, true);
    }
    
    private void init(ThreadGroup g, Runnable target, String name,
                      long stackSize, AccessControlContext acc,
                      boolean inheritThreadLocals) {
        if (name == null) {
            throw new NullPointerException("name cannot be null");
        }

        this.name = name;
        //父线程
        Thread parent = currentThread();
        ...
        if (inheritThreadLocals && parent.inheritableThreadLocals != null)
            this.inheritableThreadLocals =
                    ThreadLocal.createInheritedMap(parent.inheritableThreadLocals);
        /* Stash the specified stack size in case the VM cares */
        this.stackSize = stackSize;
    }
}

可以看出，线程类有2个属性：threadLocals、inheritableThreadLocals，父线程使用new Thread(Runnable target)创建子线程的时候，会拷贝他的inheritableThreadLocals赋值给儿子线程的inheritableThreadLocals。

在调用ThreadLocal的get()方法时，ThreadLocal类的getMap()方法返回了线程的threadLocals属性，inheritableThreadLocals覆盖了getMap()方法返回了线程的inheritableThreadLocals属性。