static variables in multithreading

[gaurav abbi]

hi all,
as we know instance variables live on heap inside the object, but where do static variables live. if they live on stack, then different threads have different stacks, so in that case do they have different copies of static variables or is there some sharing mechanism going on.

please correct me if my understanding is wrong..

[Ricky Clarkson]

They live on the heap.

[Campbell Ritchie]

As far as I know a static member of a class is loaded into memory whenever the class is loaded and remains there. So there is only ever one copy of each static member in memory.

[Jesper de Jong]

With static member variables there is only one copy of the variable that is shared by all threads - not one copy per thread.

If you need one copy per thread, then you can use class java.lang.ThreadLocal (look it up in the API documentation).

[Rahul Bhattacharjee]

static variables live on the heap.