What is the meaning of the term “thread-safe”?

Question

Does it mean that two threads can\'t change the underlying data simultaneously? Or does it mean that the given code segment will run with predictable results when multiple t

Answer 1

As others have pointed out, thread safety means that a piece of code will work without errors if it's used by more than one thread at once.

It's worth being aware that this sometimes comes at a cost, of computer time and more complex coding, so it isn't always desirable. If a class can be safely used on only one thread, it may be better to do so.

For example, Java has two classes that are almost equivalent, StringBuffer and StringBuilder. The difference is that StringBuffer is thread-safe, so a single instance of a StringBuffer may be used by multiple threads at once. StringBuilder is not thread-safe, and is designed as a higher-performance replacement for those cases (the vast majority) when the String is built by only one thread.