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Noncompliant Code Example

This noncompliant code example consists of two classes, an immutable ImmutablePoint class and a mutable Holder class. Holder is mutable because a new ImmutablePoint instance can be assigned to it using the setPoint() method. If one thread updates the value of the ipoint field, another thread may still see the reference of the old value.

class Holder {
  ImmutablePoint ipoint;
  
  Holder(ImmutablePoint ip) {
   ipoint = ip;
  }
  
  void getPoint() {
    return ipoint();
  }

  void setPoint(ImmutablePoint ip) {
    this.ipoint = ip;
  }
}

public class ImmutablePoint {
  final int x = 20;
  final int y = 10;
}

Compliant Solution

This compliant solution declares the ipoint field as volatile so that updates are immediately visible to other threads.

class Holder {
  volatile ImmutablePoint ipoint;
  
  Holder(ImmutablePoint ip) {
   ipoint = ip;
  }
  
  void getPoint() {
    return ipoint();
  }

  void setPoint(ImmutablePoint ip) {
    this.ipoint = ip;
  }
}

Note that no synchronization is necessary for the setPoint() method because it operates atomically on immutable data, that is, on an instance of ImmutablePoint.

Declaring immutable fields as volatile enables their safe publication, in that, once published, it is impossible to change the state of the sub-object.

Noncompliant Code Example

Thread-safe objects (which may not be strictly immutable) must declare their nonfinal fields as volatile to ensure that no thread sees any field references before the sub-objects' initialization has concluded. This noncompliant code example does not declare the map field as volatile.

public class Container<K,V> {
  Map<K,V> map;

  public Container() {
    map = new HashMap<K,V>();	
    // Put values in HashMap
  }

  public V get(Object k) {
    return map.get(k);
  }
}

Compliant Solution

This compliant solution declares the map field as volatile to ensure other threads see an up-to-date HashMap reference and object state.

public class Container<K,V> {
  volatile Map<K,V> map;
  // ...
}

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Risk Assessment

Failing to use volatile to guarantee visibility of shared values across multiple thread and prevent reordering of statements can result in unpredictable control flow.

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