Thread can be referred to as a lightweight process. Thread uses fewer resources to create and exist in the process; thread shares process resources. The main thread of Java is the thread that is started when the program starts. now let us discuss the eccentric concept of with what ways we can name a thread.
- Methods: There are two ways by which we can set the name either be it directly or indirectly which we will be peeking through.
- Creating the thread and Passing the thread’s name (Direct method)
- Using setName() method of Thread class (Indirect Method)
Method 1: Creating the thread and passing the thread’s name
- It is a direct method of naming threads in java, each thread has a name that is: Thread-0, Thread-1, Thread-2,….so on. Java provides some methods to change the thread name. There are basically two methods to set the thread name. Both methods are defined in java.lang.Thread class.
- Geek, now you must be wondering how to set the thread’s name directly? In java we can set the thread name at the time of creating the thread and bypassing the thread’s name as an argument as shown in the below example as follows:
import java.io.*;
// Class 1
// Helper class
class ThreadNaming extends Thread {
// Parameterized constructor
ThreadNaming(String name)
{
super(name);
}
// run() method for thread
@Override public void run()
{
System.out.println
("Thread is running.....");
}
}
// Class 2
// Main class
class GFG {
// main driver method
public static void main(String[] args)
{
// Creating two threads
ThreadNaming t1 = new ThreadNaming("geek1");
ThreadNaming t2 = new ThreadNaming("geek2");
// Getting the above created threads names.
System.out.println("Thread 1:
" + t1.getName());
System.out.println("Thread 2:
" + t2.getName());
// Starting threads using start() method
t1.start();
t2.start();
}
}
Output
Thread 1: geek1
Thread 2: geek2
Thread is running.....
Thread is running.....
Way 2: Using setName() method of Thread class
- We can set(change) the thread’s name by calling the setName method on that thread object. It will change the name of a thread.
public final void setName(String name)
- Parameter: A string that specifies the thread name
- Example:
import java.io.*;
// Class 1
// Helper class extending Thread class
class ThreadNaming extends Thread {
@Override public void run()
{
System.out.println
("Thread is running.....");
}
}
// Class 2
// Main class
class GFG {
// Main driver method
public static void main(String[] args)
{
// Creating two threads via above class
// as it is extending Thread class
ThreadNaming t1 = new ThreadNaming();
ThreadNaming t2 = new ThreadNaming();
System.out.println("Thread 1:
" + t1.getName());
System.out.println("Thread 2:
" + t2.getName());
// Starting threads using start() method
t1.start();
t2.start();
// Now changing the name of threads
t1.setName("javaprogramer");
t2.setName("geeksquiz");
// Again getting the new names of threads
System.out.println(
"Thread names after changing the "
+ "thread names");
// Printing the above names
System.out.println("New Thread 1 name: "
+ t1.getName());
System.out.println("New Thread 2 name: "
+ t2.getName());
}
}
Output
Thread 1: Thread-0
Thread 2: Thread-1
Thread is running.....
Thread names after
changing the thread names
New Thread 1 name: javaprogramer
New Thread 2 name: geeksquiz
Thread is running.....
How to fetch the name of the current thread?
- Now let us dwell on fetching the name of the current thread. We can fetch the current thread name at the time of creating the thread and bypassing the thread’s name as an argument.
- Method: currentThread() It is defined in java.langThread class.
- Return Type: It returns a reference to the currently executing thread
public static Thread currentThread()
- Example:
import java.io.*;
// Class 1
// Helper class extending to Thread class
class ThreadNaming extends Thread {
// run() method for this thread
@Override public void run()
{
// Display message
System.out.println(
"Fetching current thread name..");
// Getting the current thread name
// using getname() method
System.out.println(
Thread.currentThread().getName());
}
}
// Class 2
// Main class
class GFG {
// Main method driver
public static void main(String[] args)
{
// Creating two threads inside main() method
ThreadNaming t1 = new ThreadNaming();
ThreadNaming t2 = new ThreadNaming();
t1.start();
t2.start();
}
}
Output
Fetching current thread name..
Thread-0
Fetching current thread name..
Thread-1
