Thread pool in java

Thread pool uses already created Threads to execute tasks.
It avoids overhead of creating new Threads.
In case of Thread pool , group of fixed size Threads are created.
A Thread from the Thread pool is pulled out and taks is assigned to it and after completion of the task the Thread return back to Thread pool for reuse.

Java uses Executor framework which is centered around

• Executor Interface

• Sub-Interface ExecutorService

• and a class ThreadPoolExecutor which implements both of these above interfaces

By Using Excecutor one only has to create a Runnable objects and send them to Executor to execute();
We can create fixed size Thread pool i.e. it will have predefined size of the Threads in the pool.

Executor Thread Pool Methods

newFixedThreadPool(int): Creates a fixed size thread pool.
newCachedThreadPool(): Creates a thread pool that creates new threads as needed, but will reuse previously constructed threads when they are available
newSingleThreadExecutor(): Creates a single thread.

Thread pool Example :

// Java program to illustrate 
// ThreadPool
import java.text.SimpleDateFormat; 
import java.util.Date;
import java.util.concurrent.ExecutorService;
import java.util.concurrent.Executors;

// Task class to be executed (Step 1)
class Task implements Runnable   
{
    private String name;

    public Task(String s)
    {
        name = s;
    }

    // Prints task name and sleeps for 1s
    // This Whole process is repeated 5 times
    public void run()
    {
        try
        {
            for (int i = 0; i<=5; i++)
            {
                if (i==0)
                {
                    Date d = new Date();
                    SimpleDateFormat ft = new SimpleDateFormat("hh:mm:ss");
                    System.out.println("Initialization Time for"
                            + " task name - "+ name +" = " +ft.format(d));   
                    //prints the initialization time for every task 
                }
                else
                {
                    Date d = new Date();
                    SimpleDateFormat ft = new SimpleDateFormat("hh:mm:ss");
                    System.out.println("Executing Time for task name - "+
                            name +" = " +ft.format(d));   
                    // prints the execution time for every task 
                }
                Thread.sleep(1000);
            }
            System.out.println(name+" complete");
        }

        catch(InterruptedException e)
        {
            e.printStackTrace();
        }
    }
}
public class Test
{
     // Maximum number of threads in thread pool
    static final int MAX_T = 3;             

    public static void main(String[] args)
    {
        // creates five tasks
        Runnable r1 = new Task("task 1");
        Runnable r2 = new Task("task 2");
        Runnable r3 = new Task("task 3");
        Runnable r4 = new Task("task 4");
        Runnable r5 = new Task("task 5");      

        // creates a thread pool with MAX_T no. of 
        // threads as the fixed pool size(Step 2)
        ExecutorService pool = Executors.newFixedThreadPool(MAX_T);  

        // passes the Task objects to the pool to execute (Step 3)
        pool.execute(r1);
        pool.execute(r2);
        pool.execute(r3);
        pool.execute(r4);
        pool.execute(r5); 

        // pool shutdown ( Step 4)
        pool.shutdown();    
    }
}