Java Buzz Forum - Difference between synchronized block and method in Java

Synchronized block and synchronized methods are two ways to use synchronized keyword in Java and implement mutual exclusion on critical section of code. Since Java is mainly used to write multi-threading programs, which present various kinds of thread related issues like thread-safety, deadlock and race conditions, which plagues into code mainly because of poor understanding of synchronization mechanism provided by Java programming language. Java provides inbuilt synchronized and volatile keyword to achieve synchronization in Java. Main difference between synchronized method and synchronized block is selection of lock on which critical section is locked. Synchronized method depending upon whether its a static method or non static locks on either class level lock or object lock. Class level lock is one for each class and represented by class literal e.g. Stirng.class. Object level lock is provided by current object e.g. this instance, You should never mix static and non static synchronized method in Java.. On the other hand synchronized block locks on monitor evaluated by expression provided as parameter to synchronized block. In next section we will see an example of both synchronized method and synchronized block to understand this difference better.


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