Synchronization question- please help

[Sanju Shah]

Hi all,

Following is what I'm trying to do.

1) I hava a baseclass CLass A which has a instance String variable.
Abstract class A
{
protected String var = "base";
abstract protected void modify(string input);
}
2) I have a subclass Class B which extends Class A
class B extends Class A
{
modify(String input){
if (input.equlasIgnorecase("A")
var = "subclass";
else
var ="SubClass1"
}

}

My question is Class A is accessed by multiple threads so ineffect multiple threads are modifiying the the variable "Var" based on the input value. Do I need to synchronize on the "Var" variable to make sure right vaues are assigned? IF so can is below version the right way to do it? Please bear with me as I'm new to java . Also will it take any performance hit?
class B extends Class A
{
modify(String input){
synchronized (var){
if (input.equlasIgnorecase("A")
var = "subclass";
else
var ="SubClass1"
}
}

}

THanks

[Henry Wong]

Do I need to synchronize on the "Var" variable to make sure right vaues are assigned? IF so can is below version the right way to do it? Please bear with me as I'm new to java . Also will it take any performance hit?

class B extends Class A {
    modify(String input){
        synchronized (var){
            if (input.equlasIgnorecase("A") 
                var = "subclass";
            else 
                var ="SubClass1" 
        } 
    }
}

Yes, you need to synchronized in order to protect shared data. And no, how you are doing it will *not* work.

Synchronizations is based on objects -- not references. Synchronizing with a reference variable that changes means that different threads will be synchronizing on different variables.

In your case, since you just need to protect an instance variable. Synchronizing on the "this" variable should work.

Henry