Threads and stop()

Question

Hi
I am struggling with the deprecated stop() method.I have a requirement in which I have to stop the thread from whatever it is doing after X amount of time.I cant go the interrupt route as my code doesnt satisfy any conditions for the interrupt to work (For Ex. sleep() and wait() ; running in a loop ; etc).
Stop method seems ideal to me ; as it does the work I want ; but cant use it as its not a good programming practice.
Assigning Thread to null also doesnt work.
Any ideas.
Thanks
Pankaj

Answer 1

Hope this helps
The proper way to stop a running thread is to set a variable that the thread checks occasionally. When the thread detects that the variable is set, it should return from the run() method.
Note: Thread.suspend() and Thread.stop() provide asynchronous methods of stopping a thread. However, these methods have been deprecated because they are very unsafe. Using them often results in deadlocks and incorrect resource cleanup.
    // Create and start the thread
    MyThread thread = new MyThread();
    thread.start();
    // Do work...
    // Stop the thread
    thread.allDone = true;
    class MyThread extends Thread {
        boolean allDone = false;
        // This method is called when the thread runs
        public void run() {
            while (true) {
                // Do work...
                if (allDone) {
                    return;
                // Do work...
Alternatively declare a stop() method inside your thread or runnable class and call this method to set allDone variable to false.