Daemon thread in Java | Code Factory

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Daemon thread is a low priority thread that runs in background to perform tasks such as garbage collection.

• They can not prevent the JVM from exiting when all the user threads finish their execution.
• JVM terminates itself when all user threads finish their execution
• If JVM finds running daemon thread, it terminates the thread and after that shutdown itself. JVM does not care whether Daemon thread is running or not.
• It is an utmost low priority thread.

Methods :

1. void setDaemon(boolean status)

This method is used to mark the current thread as daemon thread or user thread. For example if I have a user thread tU then tU.setDaemon(true) would make it Daemon thread. On the other hand if I have a Daemon thread tD then by calling tD.setDaemon(false) would make it user thread.

Syntax :

public final void setDaemon(boolean on)
Marks this thread as either a daemon thread or a user thread. The Java Virtual Machine exits when the only threads running are all daemon threads.
This method must be invoked before the thread is started.
Parameters:
    on - if true, marks this thread as a daemon thread
Throws:
    IllegalThreadStateException - if this thread is alive

2. boolean isDaemon():

This method is used to check that current is daemon. It returns true if the thread is Daemon else it returns false.

Syntax :

public final boolean isDaemon()
Tests if this thread is a daemon thread.
Returns:
    true if this thread is a daemon thread; false otherwise.

DaemonTest.java

package com.codeFactory;
/**
 * @author code.factory
 *
 */
public class DaemonTest {
public static void main(String[] args) {
        new WorkerThread().start();
try {
            Thread.sleep(7500);
        } catch (InterruptedException e) {
            // handle here exception
        }
System.out.println("Main Thread ending") ;
    }
}
class WorkerThread extends Thread {
public WorkerThread() {
        // When false, (i.e. when it's a user thread),
        // the Worker thread continues to run.
        // When true, (i.e. when it's a daemon thread),
        // the Worker thread terminates when the main 
        // thread terminates.
        setDaemon(true); 
    }
public void run() {
        int count = 0;
while (true) {
            System.out.println("Hello from Worker "+count++);
try {
                sleep(5000);
            } catch (InterruptedException e) {
                // handle exception here
            }
        }
    }
}

Output :

Hello from Worker 0
Hello from Worker 1
Main Thread ending
package com.codeFactory;
/**
 * @author code.factory
 *
 */
public class DaemonTest extends Thread {
public DaemonTest(String name) {
  super(name);
 }
 
 public void run() {
  if(Thread.currentThread().isDaemon()) {
   System.out.println(getName() + " is Daemon Thread");
  } else {
   System.out.println(getName() + " is User Thread");
  }
 }
 
    public static void main(String[] args) {
     DaemonTest d1 = new DaemonTest("d1");
     DaemonTest d2 = new DaemonTest("d2");
     d1.setDaemon(true);
     d1.start();
     d2.start();
    }
}

Output :

d1 is Daemon Thread
d2 is User Thread