How many ways are for creating a new thread in Java?

Question

Actually, what other ways are available apart from extending the Thread class and implementing the Runnable interface?

Answer 1

There are only Two ways for creating a Thread already you have mentioned but a third way is there to invoke the Thread.

In java1.5 there is another way to invoke a thread. That is by “ExecutorService”. All these classes are from the “java.util.concurrent” package. There are various ways to create a “ExecutorService” using “Executors” factory class. The following is one of the way to create “ExecutorService”..

ExecutorService es= Executors.newSingleThreadExecutor();

RunnableImpl r = new RunnableImpl();

Future fu=es.submit(r);

Using “ExecutorService” methods we can submit eighter Runnable or Callable to the service for execution.

How ever this cannot be said as the new way to create a Thread. It is because ExecutorService internally uses “ThreadFactory” class to create a new thread which internally uses eighter first or second method. So we have to say that there are only two ways to create threads but there is a new way in java1.5 to invoke a thread but not to create a Thread.