Intra-thread coherence

Question

The code is simple.

// not annotated with volatile
public static int I = 0;

public static int test(){
    I = 1;
    return I;
}

There is a thread that invokes the method test.

Is it possible the method test will return the value '0'?

In other words, the reading of a shared variable maybe not see the modifying by the same thread.

---

update

The question just very simple, but I make its obscurity, I'm really sorry about it.

The a thread means a single thread.

And the question is duplicated with it.

Answer 1

Any answer that does not explain in terms on java language specification is only partially correct, if correct at all.

You need to make a clear distinction between actions that happens within a single thread and are tied together by program order and that in turn creates a happens-before connection, specifically via:

If x and y are actions of the same thread and x comes before y in program order, then hb(x, y).

That rule tells you that if you think about this code in single threaded world, it will always print 1.

And on the other hand, actions that create synchronizes with connections across different threads, and implicitly those create happens-before, via:

If an action x synchronizes-with a following action y, then we also have hb(x, y).

In your case, I is a plain field, as such every operation related to it is a plain store and/or a plain load. Such stores and loads do not created any connections at all according to the JLS. As such some thread that reads I can always read it as 0 if there is a writing thread involved.