Thread priorities are used by the thread scheduler to decide when each thread should be allowed to run. In theory, higher-priority threads get more CPU time than lower-priority threads
General form
final void setPriority(int level)
The value of level must be within the range MIN_PRIORITY and MAX_PRIORITY. Currently, these values are 1 and 10, respectively. To return a thread to default priority, specify NORM_PRIORITY, which is currently 5. These priorities are defined as static final variables within Thread
We can obtain the current priority setting by calling the getPriority( ) method of Thread
final int getPriority( )
Demonstrate thread priorities
class clicker implements Runnable {
long click = 0;
Thread t;
private volatile boolean running = true;
public clicker(int p) {
t = new Thread(this);
t.setPriority(p);
}
public void run() {
while (running) {
click++;
}
}
public void stop() {
running = false;
}
public void start() {
t.start();
}
}
class HiLoPri {
public static void main(String args[]) {
Thread.currentThread().setPriority(Thread.MAX_PRIORITY);
clicker hi = new clicker(Thread.NORM_PRIORITY + 2);
clicker lo = new clicker(Thread.NORM_PRIORITY - 2);
lo.start();
hi.start();
try {
Thread.sleep(10000);
} catch (InterruptedException e) {
System.out.println("Main thread interrupted.");
}
lo.stop();
hi.stop();
// Wait for child threads to terminate.
try {
hi.t.join();
lo.t.join();
} catch (InterruptedException e) {
System.out.println("InterruptedException caught");
}
System.out.println("Low-priority thread: " + lo.click);
System.out.println("High-priority thread: " + hi.click);
}
}
Output
Low-priority thread: 4408112
High-priority thread: 589626904
The higher-priority thread got the majority of the CPU time