Java™ Platform
Standard Ed. 6

java.lang
Class InheritableThreadLocal<T>

java.lang.Object
  extended by java.lang.ThreadLocal<T>
      extended by java.lang.InheritableThreadLocal<T>

public class InheritableThreadLocal<T>
extends ThreadLocal<T>

This class extends ThreadLocal to provide inheritance of values from parent thread to child thread: when a child thread is created, the child receives initial values for all inheritable thread-local variables for which the parent has values. Normally the child's values will be identical to the parent's; however, the child's value can be made an arbitrary function of the parent's by overriding the childValue method in this class.

Inheritable thread-local variables are used in preference to ordinary thread-local variables when the per-thread-attribute being maintained in the variable (e.g., User ID, Transaction ID) must be automatically transmitted to any child threads that are created.

Since:
1.2
See Also:
ThreadLocal

Constructor Summary
InheritableThreadLocal()
           
 
Method Summary
protected  T childValue(T parentValue)
          Computes the child's initial value for this inheritable thread-local variable as a function of the parent's value at the time the child thread is created.
 
Methods inherited from class java.lang.ThreadLocal
get, initialValue, remove, set
 
Methods inherited from class java.lang.Object
clone, equals, finalize, getClass, hashCode, notify, notifyAll, toString, wait, wait, wait
 

Constructor Detail

InheritableThreadLocal

public InheritableThreadLocal()
Method Detail

childValue

protected T childValue(T parentValue)
Computes the child's initial value for this inheritable thread-local variable as a function of the parent's value at the time the child thread is created. This method is called from within the parent thread before the child is started.

This method merely returns its input argument, and should be overridden if a different behavior is desired.

Parameters:
parentValue - the parent thread's value
Returns:
the child thread's initial value

Java™ Platform
Standard Ed. 6

Submit a bug or feature
For further API reference and developer documentation, see Java SE Developer Documentation. That documentation contains more detailed, developer-targeted descriptions, with conceptual overviews, definitions of terms, workarounds, and working code examples.

Copyright 2009 Sun Microsystems, Inc. All rights reserved. Use is subject to license terms. Also see the documentation redistribution policy.