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Ouabaine - 09 Mar 2008 09:52 GMT

Hello all,

In my game, I want to display an animation when I am loading the data
(sounds and graphics). I plan to do this with another thread.
My question : is the thread exited (thread killed, all the resources
cleared) when you exit from the run() method? Or do I have to call a
specific function to clean it?

Thanks for your answers.

Francois

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Chris - 09 Mar 2008 21:00 GMT

> Hello all,
>
[quoted text clipped - 7 lines]
>
> Francois

When the run() method exits, the thread is dead and no longer consumes
thread-related resources. The thread object itself, though, may persist
if you still have a reference to it.

For example:

MyThread thread = new MyThread();
thread.start();

// Do other stuff here.
// Thread runs on its own, eventually dies.

// At this point, if the thread variable still points
// to an instance of MyThread, then it and everything it contains
// is still in memory.

// Do this:

thread = null;

// to make it eligible for garbage collection

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Lew - 09 Mar 2008 22:35 GMT

> When the run() method exits, the thread is dead and no longer consumes
> thread-related resources. The thread object itself, though, may persist
[quoted text clipped - 15 lines]
>
> thread = null;

Or better yet, just have the variable 'thread' pass out of scope.

Typical use:

public static void main( String [] args )
{
Runnable r = factory.createBasedOn( args );
Thread t = new Thread( r );
t.start();
}

't' goes out of scope after main() returns, so the variable reference
vanishes, enabling GC for the Thread object when it's finished.

This is idiomatically emphasized with

public static void main( String [] args )
{
Runnable r = factory.createBasedOn( args );
new Thread( r ).start();
}

Signature

Lew

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Ouabaine - 10 Mar 2008 08:13 GMT

Thanks to you both.

Francois

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