java synchronized keyword needed on primitive getter / setter method?

Question

I read some java code, and found these functions:

synchronized void setConnected(boolean connected){
   this.connected = connected;
}

synchronized boolean i         


        

Answer 1

Synchronization is needed here to prevent memory consistency errors, see http://docs.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/essential/concurrency/memconsist.html. Though in this concrete case volatile would be much more efficient solution

private volatile boolean connected;

void setConnected(boolean connected){
   this.connected = connected;
}

boolean isConnected(){
   return connected;
}