volatile scope question

[Jack Nam]

Hi Everybody,

I have a question on the scope of volatile.

If I have two classes MyObj and MyOtherObj. MyOtherObj is refered by MyObj.

public class MyObj {

public MyOtherObj myOtherObj = new MyOtherObj();

}

public class MyOtherObj {

public Boolean myBoolean= true;

}

And I have another class has a reference to MyObj with volatile attribute. Do I have to declare myBoolean as volatile to make it thread-safe?

public class MyClass{
private volatile MyObj myObj = new MyObj();

// access myBoolean from this class
myObj.myOtherObj.myBoolean = false;

}

[Paul Clapham]

No. But that's because declaring a variable as volatile doesn't make it thread-safe.

[Jack Nam]

Assume that only one thread do the write operation, other just read. Would it be safe from memory visibility point of view?

Sorry for not mentioned that.

Paul Clapham wrote:No. But that's because declaring a variable as volatile doesn't make it thread-safe.

[Mike Simmons]

Jack Nam wrote:Assume that only one thread do the write operation, other just read. Would it be safe from memory visibility point of view?

Yes, writing the reference to a volatile field is sufficient to ensure visibility to other threads (including visibility of fields within MyOtherObj.