What Are The Two Basic Ways in Which Classes That Can be Run as Threads May be Defined

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A thread class may be declared as a subclass of Thread, or it may implement the Runnable interface.

In Java, there are two basic ways to define classes that can be run as threads:

  1. Extending the Thread class: You can create a new class that extends the Thread class and override its run() method. The run() method contains the code that will be executed when the thread is started. Here’s an example:
    java
    public class MyThread extends Thread {
    public void run() {
    // Code to be executed by the thread
    }    public static void main(String[] args) {
    MyThread myThread = new MyThread();
    myThread.start(); // This starts the execution of the run() method in a new thread
    }
    }

  2. Implementing the Runnable interface: Alternatively, you can create a class that implements the Runnable interface. This interface has a single method, run(), which you need to override. The advantage of this approach is that it allows you to extend another class if needed, as Java supports multiple interface implementations. Here’s an example:
    java
    public class MyRunnable implements Runnable {
    public void run() {
    // Code to be executed by the thread
    }    public static void main(String[] args) {
    Thread myThread = new Thread(new MyRunnable());
    myThread.start(); // This starts the execution of the run() method in a new thread
    }
    }

Both approaches allow you to define the behavior that will be executed in a separate thread of execution. The second approach (implementing Runnable) is often preferred as it provides more flexibility in terms of class hierarchy and is considered good practice in Java.