Which method is used to identify a thread?

In Java, the getName() method of the Thread class is used to identify a thread. This method returns the name of the current thread as a string.

Key Details:

• The name of a thread is an identifier that can be used to distinguish between different threads.
• Each thread has a default name assigned by Java when it is created. The default name follows the format "Thread-N", where N is a unique number. For example, "Thread-0", "Thread-1", etc.
• You can also assign a custom name to a thread when you create it.

Example of Identifying a Thread:

class MyThread extends Thread {
    public void run() {
        // Get and print the name of the current thread
        System.out.println("Thread name: " + Thread.currentThread().getName());
    }

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        MyThread thread1 = new MyThread();
        thread1.setName("MyCustomThread");  // Set a custom name
        thread1.start();  // Start the thread
        
        MyThread thread2 = new MyThread();
        thread2.start();  // This will use the default name
    }
}

Explanation:

• The getName() method is used inside the run() method to print the name of the current thread.
• In this example, thread1 is given a custom name, "MyCustomThread", while thread2 will use the default name assigned by Java (e.g., "Thread-1").

Output:

Thread name: MyCustomThread
Thread name: Thread-0

Additional Information:

• Thread Identification: Besides the thread name, a thread is also identified by its thread ID (a unique identifier for each thread), which can be obtained using the getId() method.

  long threadId = Thread.currentThread().getId();

• Setting Custom Thread Names: You can assign a custom name to a thread either through the constructor or by using the setName() method after creating the thread.

Conclusion:

• The getName() method is used to identify and retrieve the name of the thread, which can be helpful for debugging or distinguishing between threads in a multithreaded application.

Recommended Courses:

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• Grokking Multithreading and Concurrency for Coding Interviews
• Grokking Data Structures & Algorithms for Coding Interviews
• Grokking the System Design Interview

These courses will help you manage threads, synchronize tasks, and solve concurrency problems in Java.