"Java DateFormat is not threadsafe" what does this leads to?

date-format, java, multithreading

Solution

Let's try it out.

Here is a program in which multiple threads use a shared `SimpleDateFormat`.

Program:

public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {

    final DateFormat format = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyyMMdd");

    Callable<Date> task = new Callable<Date>(){
        public Date call() throws Exception {
            return format.parse("20101022");
        }
    };

    //pool with 5 threads
    ExecutorService exec = Executors.newFixedThreadPool(5);
    List<Future<Date>> results = new ArrayList<Future<Date>>();

    //perform 10 date conversions
    for(int i = 0 ; i < 10 ; i++){
        results.add(exec.submit(task));
    }
    exec.shutdown();

    //look at the results
    for(Future<Date> result : results){
        System.out.println(result.get());
    }
}

Run this a few times and you will see:

Exceptions:

Here are a few examples:

1.

Caused by: java.lang.NumberFormatException: For input string: ""
    at java.lang.NumberFormatException.forInputString(NumberFormatException.java:48)
    at java.lang.Long.parseLong(Long.java:431)
    at java.lang.Long.parseLong(Long.java:468)
    at java.text.DigitList.getLong(DigitList.java:177)
    at java.text.DecimalFormat.parse(DecimalFormat.java:1298)
    at java.text.SimpleDateFormat.subParse(SimpleDateFormat.java:1589)

2.

Caused by: java.lang.NumberFormatException: For input string: ".10201E.102014E4"
    at sun.misc.FloatingDecimal.readJavaFormatString(FloatingDecimal.java:1224)
    at java.lang.Double.parseDouble(Double.java:510)
    at java.text.DigitList.getDouble(DigitList.java:151)
    at java.text.DecimalFormat.parse(DecimalFormat.java:1303)
    at java.text.SimpleDateFormat.subParse(SimpleDateFormat.java:1589)

3.

Caused by: java.lang.NumberFormatException: multiple points
    at sun.misc.FloatingDecimal.readJavaFormatString(FloatingDecimal.java:1084)
    at java.lang.Double.parseDouble(Double.java:510)
    at java.text.DigitList.getDouble(DigitList.java:151)
    at java.text.DecimalFormat.parse(DecimalFormat.java:1303)
    at java.text.SimpleDateFormat.subParse(SimpleDateFormat.java:1936)
    at java.text.SimpleDateFormat.parse(SimpleDateFormat.java:1312)

Incorrect Results:

Sat Oct 22 00:00:00 BST 2011
Thu Jan 22 00:00:00 GMT 1970
Fri Oct 22 00:00:00 BST 2010
Fri Oct 22 00:00:00 BST 2010
Fri Oct 22 00:00:00 BST 2010
Thu Oct 22 00:00:00 GMT 1970
Fri Oct 22 00:00:00 BST 2010
Fri Oct 22 00:00:00 BST 2010
Fri Oct 22 00:00:00 BST 2010
Fri Oct 22 00:00:00 BST 2010

Correct Results:

Fri Oct 22 00:00:00 BST 2010
Fri Oct 22 00:00:00 BST 2010
Fri Oct 22 00:00:00 BST 2010
Fri Oct 22 00:00:00 BST 2010
Fri Oct 22 00:00:00 BST 2010
Fri Oct 22 00:00:00 BST 2010
Fri Oct 22 00:00:00 BST 2010
Fri Oct 22 00:00:00 BST 2010
Fri Oct 22 00:00:00 BST 2010
Fri Oct 22 00:00:00 BST 2010

Another approach to safely use DateFormats in a multi-threaded environment is to use a `ThreadLocal` variable to hold the `DateFormat` object, which means that each thread will have its own copy and doesn't need to wait for other threads to release it. This is how:

public class DateFormatTest {

  private static final ThreadLocal<DateFormat> df = new ThreadLocal<DateFormat>(){
    @Override
    protected DateFormat initialValue() {
        return new SimpleDateFormat("yyyyMMdd");
    }
  };

  public Date convert(String source) throws ParseException{
    Date d = df.get().parse(source);
    return d;
  }
}

Here is a good post with more details.

Problem

Original source

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