一种可能的(也是常见的)用途是，当您有一些不是线程安全的对象，但您希望避免同步访问该对象(我正在看您，SimpleDateFormat)。相反，给每个线程它自己的对象实例。

例如:

public class Foo
{
    // SimpleDateFormat is not thread-safe, so give one to each thread
    private static final ThreadLocal<SimpleDateFormat> formatter = new ThreadLocal<SimpleDateFormat>(){
        @Override
        protected SimpleDateFormat initialValue()
        {
            return new SimpleDateFormat("yyyyMMdd HHmm");
        }
    };

    public String formatIt(Date date)
    {
        return formatter.get().format(date);
    }
}

文档。

一种可能的(也是常见的)用途是，当您有一些不是线程安全的对象，但您希望避免同步访问该对象(我正在看您，SimpleDateFormat)。相反，给每个线程它自己的对象实例。

例如:

public class Foo
{
    // SimpleDateFormat is not thread-safe, so give one to each thread
    private static final ThreadLocal<SimpleDateFormat> formatter = new ThreadLocal<SimpleDateFormat>(){
        @Override
        protected SimpleDateFormat initialValue()
        {
            return new SimpleDateFormat("yyyyMMdd HHmm");
        }
    };

    public String formatIt(Date date)
    {
        return formatter.get().format(date);
    }
}

文档。

在Java中，如果您有一个每个线程都可以变化的数据，那么您可以选择将该数据传递给每个需要(或可能需要)它的方法，或者将该数据与线程关联。如果你的所有方法都需要传递一个公共的“上下文”变量，那么到处传递数据可能是可行的。

如果不是这样，您可能不希望用额外的参数来打乱方法签名。在非线程环境中，可以使用Java中等价的全局变量来解决这个问题。在线程词中，与全局变量等价的是线程局部变量。

ThreadLocal是JVM专门提供的功能，仅为线程提供隔离的存储空间。与实例作用域变量的值一样，变量只能绑定到类的给定实例。每个对象都有其唯一的值，它们不能看到彼此的值。ThreadLocal变量的概念也是如此，在对象实例的意义上，它们是线程的本地线程，除了创建它的线程之外，其他线程看不到它。在这里看到的

import java.util.concurrent.atomic.AtomicInteger;
import java.util.stream.IntStream;


public class ThreadId {
private static final AtomicInteger nextId = new AtomicInteger(1000);

// Thread local variable containing each thread's ID
private static final ThreadLocal<Integer> threadId = ThreadLocal.withInitial(() -> nextId.getAndIncrement());


// Returns the current thread's unique ID, assigning it if necessary
public static int get() {
    return threadId.get();
}

public static void main(String[] args) {

    new Thread(() -> IntStream.range(1, 3).forEach(i -> {
        System.out.println(Thread.currentThread().getName() + " >> " + new ThreadId().get());
    })).start();

    new Thread(() -> IntStream.range(1, 3).forEach(i -> {
        System.out.println(Thread.currentThread().getName() + " >> " + new ThreadId().get());
    })).start();

    new Thread(() -> IntStream.range(1, 3).forEach(i -> {
        System.out.println(Thread.currentThread().getName() + " >> " + new ThreadId().get());
    })).start();

}
}

ThreadLocal in Java had been introduced on JDK 1.2 but was later generified in JDK 1.5 to introduce type safety on ThreadLocal variable. ThreadLocal can be associated with Thread scope, all the code which is executed by Thread has access to ThreadLocal variables but two thread can not see each others ThreadLocal variable. Each thread holds an exclusive copy of ThreadLocal variable which becomes eligible to Garbage collection after thread finished or died, normally or due to any Exception, Given those ThreadLocal variable doesn't have any other live references. ThreadLocal variables in Java are generally private static fields in Classes and maintain its state inside Thread.

阅读更多:Java示例程序和教程中的ThreadLocal

试试这个小例子，感受一下ThreadLocal变量:

public class Book implements Runnable {
    private static final ThreadLocal<List<String>> WORDS = ThreadLocal.withInitial(ArrayList::new);

    private final String bookName; // It is also the thread's name
    private final List<String> words;


    public Book(String bookName, List<String> words) {
        this.bookName = bookName;
        this.words = Collections.unmodifiableList(words);
    }

    public void run() {
        WORDS.get().addAll(words);
        System.out.printf("Result %s: '%s'.%n", bookName, String.join(", ", WORDS.get()));
    }

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        Thread t1 = new Thread(new Book("BookA", Arrays.asList("wordA1", "wordA2", "wordA3")));
        Thread t2 = new Thread(new Book("BookB", Arrays.asList("wordB1", "wordB2")));
        t1.start();
        t2.start();
    }
}

控制台输出，如果线程BookA先执行: 结果BookA: 'wordA1, wordA2, wordA3'。 结果BookB: 'wordB1, wordB2'。 控制台输出，如果先执行线程BookB: 结果BookB: 'wordB1, wordB2'。 结果BookA: 'wordA1, wordA2, wordA3'。