How to stop a thread

Earlier, static method Thread.stop() was used to stop a thread, but that led to a lot of complexities, and therefore it was deprecated later. Not only that but methods like Thread.suspend() and Thread.resume() were also deprecated after java 1.1. Now, if we cannot use these methods, then how to stop a thread.

Stop a thread using a flag

Using a flag, we can stop a thread. As long as, that flag is true, the thread will keep on running. The moment, it becomes false, the thread will stop. Let’s see the example

package com.sks;

import java.util.concurrent.atomic.AtomicBoolean;

public class MyCustomThread extends Thread {
	
	private final AtomicBoolean shouldRun = new AtomicBoolean(false); 
	
	@Override
	public void run() {
		shouldRun.set(true);
		while(shouldRun.get()) {
			System.out.println("Thread is running");
		}
		System.out.println("The thread is stopped");
	}
	
	public void stopMyThread() {
		shouldRun.set(false);
	}
	
}

Test Class

package com.sks;

public class ThreadStopTest {
	
public static void main(String[] args) {
	
	MyCustomThread t1 = new MyCustomThread();
	t1.start();
	
	try {
		Thread.sleep(5000);
	} catch (InterruptedException e) {
		e.printStackTrace();
	}
	
	t1.stopMyThread();
}
}

Output: