Simplest and understandable example of volatile keyword in Java

Volatile --> Guarantees visibility and NOT atomicity

Synchronization (Locking) --> Guarantees visibility and atomicity (if done properly)

Volatile is not a substitute for synchronization

Use volatile only when you are updating the reference and not performing some other operations on it.

Example:

volatile int i = 0;

public void incrementI(){
   i++;
}

will not be thread safe without use of synchronization or AtomicInteger as incrementing is an compound operation.

Why program does not run indefinitely?

Well that depends on various circumstances. In most cases JVM is smart enough to flush the contents.

Correct use of volatile discusses various possible uses of volatile. Using volatile correctly is tricky, I would say "When in doubt, Leave it out", use synchronized block instead.

Also:

synchronized block can be used in place of volatile but the inverse is not true.

For your particular example: if not declared volatile the server JVM could hoist the keepRunning variable out of the loop because it is not modified in the loop (turning it into an infinite loop), but the client JVM would not. That is why you see different results.

General explanation about volatile variables follows:

When a field is declared volatile, the compiler and runtime are put on notice that this variable is shared and that operations on it should not be reordered with other memory operations. Volatile variables are not cached in registers or in caches where they are hidden from other processors, so a read of a volatile variable always returns the most recent write by any thread.

The visibility effects of volatile variables extend beyond the value of the volatile variable itself. When thread A writes to a volatile variable and subsequently thread B reads that same variable, the values of all variables that were visible to A prior to writing to the volatile variable become visible to B after reading the volatile variable.

The most common use for volatile variables is as a completion, interruption, or status flag:

  volatile boolean flag;
  while (!flag)  {
     // do something untill flag is true
  }

Volatile variables can be used for other kinds of state information, but more care is required when attempting this. For example, the semantics of volatile are not strong enough to make the increment operation (count++) atomic, unless you can guarantee that the variable is written only from a single thread.

Locking can guarantee both visibility and atomicity; volatile variables can only guarantee visibility.

You can use volatile variables only when all the following criteria are met:

• Writes to the variable do not depend on its current value, or you can ensure that only a single thread ever updates the value;
• The variable does not participate in invariants with other state variables; and
• Locking is not required for any other reason while the variable is being accessed.

Debugging tip: be sure to always specify the -server JVM command line switch when invoking the JVM, even for development and testing. The server JVM performs more optimization than the client JVM, such as hoisting variables out of a loop that are not modified in the loop; code that might appear to work in the development environment (client JVM) can break in the deployment environment (server JVM).

This is an excerpt from "Java Concurrency in Practice", the best book you can find on this subject.

I have modified your example slightly. Now use the example with keepRunning as volatile and non volatile member :

class TestVolatile extends Thread{
    //volatile
    boolean keepRunning = true;

    public void run() {
        long count=0;
        while (keepRunning) {
            count++;
        }

        System.out.println("Thread terminated." + count);
    }

    public static void main(String[] args) throws InterruptedException {
        TestVolatile t = new TestVolatile();
        t.start();
        Thread.sleep(1000);
        System.out.println("after sleeping in main");
        t.keepRunning = false;
        t.join();
        System.out.println("keepRunning set to " + t.keepRunning);
    }
}