Synchronized ArrayList in Java

ArrayList is non-synchronized collection and should not be used in a concurrent environment without explicit synchronization. To synchronize an ArrayList, we can use two JDK-provided methods.

• Collections.synchronizedList() method that returns a synchronized list backed by the specified list.
• CopyOnWriteArrayList class that is a thread-safe variant of ArrayList.

1. Using Collections.synchronizedList()

The synchronizedList() returns a synchronized and thread-safe list backed by the specified list.

List syncList = Collections.synchronizedList(arraylist);

• It is recommended that we should manually synchronize the returned list when traversing it via Iterator, Spliterator or Stream else it may result in non-deterministic behavior.
• No explicit synchronization is needed to add, or remove elements from this synchronized arraylist.

List<String> namesList = Collections.synchronizedList(new ArrayList<String>());
 
//List methods are synchronized
 
namesList.add("Alex");
namesList.add("Brian");
 
//Use explicit synchronization while iterating
 
synchronized(namesList) 
{
  Iterator<String> iterator = namesList.iterator(); 
  while (iterator.hasNext()) 
  {
    System.out.println(iterator.next());
  }
}

Program output.

Alex
Brian

2. Using CopyOnWriteArrayList

The CopyOnWriteArrayList is a thread-safe variant of ArrayList in which all mutative operations (add, set, and so on) are implemented by making a fresh copy of the underlying array. This class is very useful when we cannot or do not want to synchronize the traversals of the arraylist. It is part of thread-safe Java collections.

The CopyOnWriteArrayList class uses “snapshot” style iterator method. It uses a reference to the state of the backing array at the point that the iterator was created. This backing array never changes during the lifetime of the iterator.

• The iterator will not reflect additions, removals, or changes to the list since the iterator was created.
• Element-changing operations on iterators themselves (remove, set, and add) are not supported.

CopyOnWriteArrayList<String> namesList = new CopyOnWriteArrayList<String>();
 
//List methods are synchronized
 
namesList.add("Alex");
namesList.add("Brian");
 
//No explicit synchronization is needed during iteration
 
Iterator<String> iterator = namesList.iterator(); 
while (iterator.hasNext()) 
{
  System.out.println(iterator.next());
}

Program output.

Alex
Brian

Happy Learning !!

Read More: ArrayList Java Docs