Threads - stopping a while loop

[Chris Flynn]

I'm only a basic Java programmer, trying to do something quite complex, so please forgive me. I've tried reading a textbook and some tutorials, but I can't get my head around this problem!
Assuming I have 2 threads:

Thread A - the 'main' thread, contains UI
Thread B - which once started goes into a while loop reading a buffer. This is a Runnable object

I'm wondering about the best way to get the while loop in B to stop (it's capturing data from a microphone) from the UI. Assuming:

volatile bool stop;

should I use:

while (!stop) {...

in thread B, or is there a better way?

If this is the best way, then should the variable be in thread A (so I'd pass a reference of object A to B in the constructor, and say

while (!A.stop)

or if I put it in thread B (as well as a

setStop()

method) and called the method from thread A, would the method run during the while loop, or after (e.g. never!) ?

What is the most efficient and elegant way to go about this? I need the thread to continue doing something else once the while loop has continued, so can't say

while (thread!=null)

which I think I've seen elsewhere.

Cheers!
[ February 25, 2006: Message edited by: Chris Flynn ]

[Stan James]

while(!stop) or while(running) is pretty common. I've always made the boolean private with a synchronized setter.

The real tough ones have some blocking operation in the middle of the loop like a blocking read so they might never make it back to the top of the loop.