Is java.util.Hashtable thread safe?

Question

It\'s been a while since I\'ve used hashtable for anything significant, but I seem to recall the get() and put() methods being synchronized.

The JavaDocs don\'t ref

Answer 1

No. It is 'threadsafe' only to the extent that its methods are synchronized. However it is not threadsafe in general, and it can't be, because classes that export internal state such as Iterators or Enumerations require the use of the internal state to be synchronized as well. That's why the new Collections classes are not synchronized, as the Java designers recognized that thread-safety is up to the user of the class, not the class itself.