Atomic classes are not general purpose replacements for java.lang.Integer and related classes. They do not define methods such as equals, hashCode and compareTo. (Because atomic variables are expected to be mutated, they are poor choices for hash table keys.) Additionally, classes are provided only for those types that are commonly useful in intended applications. For example, there is no atomic class for representing byte. In those infrequent cases where you would like to do so, you can use an AtomicInteger to hold byte values, and cast appropriately. You can also hold floats using Float.floatToRawIntBits(float) and Float.intBitsToFloat(int) conversions, and doubles using Double.doubleToRawLongBits(double) and Double.longBitsToDouble(long) conversions.

参考:https://docs.oracle.com/javase/8/docs/api/java/util/concurrent/atomic/package-summary.html

就像gabuzo说的，当我想通过引用传递一个整型时，有时我使用AtomicIntegers。它是一个内置类，具有特定于体系结构的代码，因此它比我可以快速编写的任何MutableInteger更容易，也可能更优化。也就是说，这感觉像是对课程的滥用。

我能想到的最简单的例子是使递增成为一个原子操作。

使用标准int型:

private volatile int counter;

public int getNextUniqueIndex() {
    return counter++; // Not atomic, multiple threads could get the same result
}

AtomicInteger:

private AtomicInteger counter;

public int getNextUniqueIndex() {
    return counter.getAndIncrement();
}

后者是执行简单的突变效果(特别是计数或唯一索引)的一种非常简单的方法，而不必求助于同步所有访问。

More complex synchronization-free logic can be employed by using compareAndSet() as a type of optimistic locking - get the current value, compute result based on this, set this result iff value is still the input used to do the calculation, else start again - but the counting examples are very useful, and I'll often use AtomicIntegers for counting and VM-wide unique generators if there's any hint of multiple threads being involved, because they're so easy to work with I'd almost consider it premature optimisation to use plain ints.

While you can almost always achieve the same synchronization guarantees with ints and appropriate synchronized declarations, the beauty of AtomicInteger is that the thread-safety is built into the actual object itself, rather than you needing to worry about the possible interleavings, and monitors held, of every method that happens to access the int value. It's much harder to accidentally violate threadsafety when calling getAndIncrement() than when returning i++ and remembering (or not) to acquire the correct set of monitors beforehand.

compareAndSet()函数的简单示例:

import java.util.concurrent.atomic.AtomicInteger; 

public class GFG { 
    public static void main(String args[]) 
    { 

        // Initially value as 0 
        AtomicInteger val = new AtomicInteger(0); 

        // Prints the updated value 
        System.out.println("Previous value: "
                           + val); 

        // Checks if previous value was 0 
        // and then updates it 
        boolean res = val.compareAndSet(0, 6); 

        // Checks if the value was updated. 
        if (res) 
            System.out.println("The value was"
                               + " updated and it is "
                           + val); 
        else
            System.out.println("The value was "
                               + "not updated"); 
      } 
  } 

打印出来的是: 前值:0 该值被更新为6 另一个简单的例子:

    import java.util.concurrent.atomic.AtomicInteger; 

public class GFG { 
    public static void main(String args[]) 
    { 

        // Initially value as 0 
        AtomicInteger val 
            = new AtomicInteger(0); 

        // Prints the updated value 
        System.out.println("Previous value: "
                           + val); 

         // Checks if previous value was 0 
        // and then updates it 
        boolean res = val.compareAndSet(10, 6); 

          // Checks if the value was updated. 
          if (res) 
            System.out.println("The value was"
                               + " updated and it is "
                               + val); 
        else
            System.out.println("The value was "
                               + "not updated"); 
    } 
} 

打印出来的是: 前值:0 没有更新该值

在Java 8中，原子类扩展了两个有趣的函数:

int getAndUpdate（IntUnaryOperator updateFunction） int updateAndGet（IntUnaryOperator updateFunction）

两者都使用updateFunction来执行原子值的更新。区别在于第一个返回旧值，第二个返回新值。updateFunction可以实现为执行比标准操作更复杂的“比较和设置”操作。例如，它可以检查原子计数器不低于零，通常它需要同步，这里的代码是无锁的:

    public class Counter {

      private final AtomicInteger number;

      public Counter(int number) {
        this.number = new AtomicInteger(number);
      }

      /** @return true if still can decrease */
      public boolean dec() {
        // updateAndGet(fn) executed atomically:
        return number.updateAndGet(n -> (n > 0) ? n - 1 : n) > 0;
      }
    }

代码取自Java原子示例。

AtomicInteger的主要用途是在多线程上下文中，并且需要在不使用synchronized的情况下对整数执行线程安全操作。基本类型int上的赋值和检索已经是原子的，但AtomicInteger附带的许多操作在int上不是原子的。

最简单的是getAndXXX或xXXAndGet。例如，getAndIncrement()是i++的原子等价物，它不是原子的，因为它实际上是三个操作的捷径:检索、加法和赋值。compareAndSet对于实现信号量、锁、锁存器等非常有用。

使用AtomicInteger比使用同步执行相同的操作更快，可读性更强。

一个简单的测试:

public synchronized int incrementNotAtomic() {
    return notAtomic++;
}

public void performTestNotAtomic() {
    final long start = System.currentTimeMillis();
    for (int i = 0 ; i < NUM ; i++) {
        incrementNotAtomic();
    }
    System.out.println("Not atomic: "+(System.currentTimeMillis() - start));
}

public void performTestAtomic() {
    final long start = System.currentTimeMillis();
    for (int i = 0 ; i < NUM ; i++) {
        atomic.getAndIncrement();
    }
    System.out.println("Atomic: "+(System.currentTimeMillis() - start));
}

在我使用Java 1.6的PC上，原子测试在3秒内运行，而同步测试在5.5秒内运行。这里的问题是同步操作(notatomic++)非常短。所以同步的成本相对于操作来说是非常重要的。

除了原子性，AtomicInteger还可以作为一个可变版本的Integer，例如在map中作为值使用。