What is the difference between ExecutorService.submit and ExecutorService.execute in this code in Java?

Question

I am learning to use ExectorService to pool threads and send out tasks. I have a simple program below

import java.util.concurrent.Execu         


        

Answer 1

The difference is that execute simply starts the task without any further ado, whereas submit returns a Future object to manage the task. You can do the following things with the Future object:

• Cancel the task prematurely, with the cancel method.
• Wait for the task to finish executing, with get.

The Future interface is more useful if you submit a Callable to the pool. The return value of the call method will be returned when you call Future.get. If you don't maintain a reference to the Future, there is no difference.