Starting Multiple Threads

Question

I am writing a Java Multi-Threaded application which will listen to SonicMQ and pull messages off a queue. Here is some of the code which I am using to do this.
This code is from one class which I call a QueueManager:
//*** this line instantiates the QueueHandler which will read message off the queue
QueueHandler queueHandler = new QueueHandler(connect,queueReceive,queueSend);
//*** iterate through this loop and create x number of threads
for(int i = 1 ; threads >= i ; i++)
System.out.println("i=" + i);
Thread counterThread = new Thread(queueHandler);
counterThread.setName("mythread_" + i);
counterThread.start();
I am not sure if this is the right way to go about creating multiple threads. By passing in the name of 'mythread' + the variable i, I want to see which thread is getting which messages of my message queue. So, when I first get into QueueHandler ... I do get the current threadname.
public void run()
Thread runthread = Thread.currentThread();
strMyThreadName = runthread.getName();
System.out.println("QueueHandler: run: entering: threadname: " + strMyThreadName);
getConnection();
This works to get me my current threadname ... I get the output which looks correct.
However, when I am getting the messages and printing out the threadname, I get the name of the last thread.
Anyways, am I correct in trying to start 10 records in my loop in 'QueueManager' or is there a better way to do this?
Thanks.
Tom

Answer 1

I solved my old problem, and here is what I did:
In my QueueManager class I changed the code to this:
for(int i = 1 ; threads >= i ; i++)
//*** notice, I am passing in the threadname, and other parameters into the constructor
QueueHandler queueHandler = new QueueHandler("mythread_" +i,connect,queueReceive,queueSend);
Now, in the class QueueHandler, I changed the constructor to this:
//*** Get Connection, and the send and receive queue names
QueueHandler(String prm_threadname,javax.jms.QueueConnection prm_connect,String prm_rQueue,String prm_sQueue)
//*** I take the parameters I passed in and assigned them to class attributes
connect = prm_connect;
rQueue = prm_rQueue;
sQueue = prm_sQueue;          
strMyThreadName = prm_threadname;
//*** I then use this code to create a new thread based on this instance, and this starts the NEW thread on this new object.
runthread = new Thread(this, strMyThreadName);
System.out.println("New Thread=" + runthread + " threadname=" + strMyThreadName);
//*** now by calling Start, the run method will then start on this instance.
runthread.start();
I'm no expert at Java multi-threaded apps, and I am always learning, but I hope this code helps someone else out. Of course, if someone else has a better more elegant way of doing what I want to do, then I definitely want to learn.
Thanks.
Tom