What is a daemon thread in Java?

Question

Can anybody tell me what daemon threads are in Java?

Answer 1

JVM will accomplish the work when a last non-daemon thread execution is completed. By default, JVM will create a thread as nondaemon but we can make Thread as a daemon with help of method setDaemon(true). A good example of Daemon thread is GC thread which will complete his work as soon as all nondaemon threads are completed.

Answer 2

All the above answers are good. Here's a simple little code snippet, to illustrate the difference. Try it with each of the values of true and false in setDaemon.

public class DaemonTest {

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        new WorkerThread().start();

        try {
            Thread.sleep(7500);
        } catch (InterruptedException e) {
            // handle here exception
        }

        System.out.println("Main Thread ending") ;
    }

}

class WorkerThread extends Thread {

    public WorkerThread() {
        // When false, (i.e. when it's a user thread),
        // the Worker thread continues to run.
        // When true, (i.e. when it's a daemon thread),
        // the Worker thread terminates when the main 
        // thread terminates.
        setDaemon(true); 
    }

    public void run() {
        int count = 0;

        while (true) {
            System.out.println("Hello from Worker "+count++);

            try {
                sleep(5000);
            } catch (InterruptedException e) {
                // handle exception here
            }
        }
    }
}

Answer 3

For me, daemon thread it's like house keeper for user threads. If all user threads finished , the daemon thread has no job and killed by JVM. I explained it in the YouTube video.

Answer 4

A few more points (Reference: Java Concurrency in Practice)

• When a new thread is created it inherits the daemon status of its parent.

• When all non-daemon threads finish, the JVM halts, and any remaining daemon threads are abandoned:

  • finally blocks are not executed,
  • stacks are not unwound - the JVM just exits.
    
    

  Due to this reason daemon threads should be used sparingly, and it is dangerous to use them for tasks that might perform any sort of I/O.

Answer 5

Daemon threads die when the creator thread exits.

Non-daemon threads (default) can even live longer than the main thread.

if ( threadShouldDieOnApplicationEnd ) {
    thread.setDaemon ( true );
}
thread.start();

Answer 6

Let's talk only in code with working examples. I like russ's answer above but to remove any doubt I had, I enhanced it a little bit. I ran it twice, once with the worker thread set to deamon true (deamon thread) and another time set it to false (user thread). It confirms that the deamon thread ends when the main thread terminates.

public class DeamonThreadTest {

public static void main(String[] args) {

    new WorkerThread(false).start();    //set it to true and false and run twice.

    try {
        Thread.sleep(7500);
    } catch (InterruptedException e) {
        // handle here exception
    }

    System.out.println("Main Thread ending");
    }
   }

   class WorkerThread extends Thread {

    boolean isDeamon;

    public WorkerThread(boolean isDeamon) {
        // When false, (i.e. when it's a user thread),
        // the Worker thread continues to run.
        // When true, (i.e. when it's a daemon thread),
        // the Worker thread terminates when the main
        // thread terminates.
        this.isDeamon = isDeamon;
        setDaemon(isDeamon);
    }

    public void run() {
        System.out.println("I am a " + (isDeamon ? "Deamon Thread" : "User Thread (none-deamon)"));

        int counter = 0;

        while (counter < 10) {
            counter++;
            System.out.println("\tworking from Worker thread " + counter++);

            try {
                sleep(5000);
            } catch (InterruptedException e) {
                // handle exception here
            }
        }
        System.out.println("\tWorker thread ends. ");
    }
}



result when setDeamon(true)
=====================================
I am a Deamon Thread
    working from Worker thread 0
    working from Worker thread 1
Main Thread ending

Process finished with exit code 0


result when setDeamon(false)
=====================================
I am a User Thread (none-deamon)
    working from Worker thread 0
    working from Worker thread 1
Main Thread ending
    working from Worker thread 2
    working from Worker thread 3
    working from Worker thread 4
    working from Worker thread 5
    working from Worker thread 6
    working from Worker thread 7
    working from Worker thread 8
    working from Worker thread 9
    Worker thread ends. 

Process finished with exit code 0