XPathFactory.newInstance().newXPath()

Question

According to the javadoc, a XPath object is not thread safe.
So, the code below is dangerous if this could be invoked from multiple thread?
public String getNodeValue(String xpath, Node document){
          XPath x_path = XPathFactory.newInstance().newXPath();
          String value = null;
          try {
               value = x_path.evaluate(xpath, document);
          } catch (XPathExpressionException e) {
               e.printStackTrace();
          return value;
Is the code below correctly synchronized?
public String getNodeValue(String xpath, Node document){
          XPath x_path = XPathFactory.newInstance().newXPath();
          String value = null;
synchronized (x_path) {
          try {
               value = x_path.evaluate(xpath, document);
          } catch (XPathExpressionException e) {
               e.printStackTrace();
          return value;
     }

Answer 1

Thank you very much for your reply.
Is your XPath variable a class field or is it a method-local variable?It's a method local variable.
If it's a class field, is there a chance that it will be manipulated by different objects at the same time?It's not a class field so I don't think there's any chance.
THerefore, my method is okay and not necessary to be synchronized?
Edited by: Liveinjapan on Sep 30, 2008 7:52 PM