微软实际上已经发布了一篇关于竞态条件和死锁的非常详细的文章。最概括的摘要是标题段:

A race condition occurs when two threads access a shared variable at the same time. The first thread reads the variable, and the second thread reads the same value from the variable. Then the first thread and second thread perform their operations on the value, and they race to see which thread can write the value last to the shared variable. The value of the thread that writes its value last is preserved, because the thread is writing over the value that the previous thread wrote.

考虑一个操作，该操作必须在计数增加时立即显示计数。ie。，只要CounterThread增加值，DisplayThread就需要显示最近更新的值。

int i = 0;

输出

CounterThread -> i = 1  
DisplayThread -> i = 1  
CounterThread -> i = 2  
CounterThread -> i = 3  
CounterThread -> i = 4  
DisplayThread -> i = 4

在这里，CounterThread频繁地获取锁，并在DisplayThread显示它之前更新值。这里存在一个竞态条件。竞争条件可以通过使用同步来解决

这个讨论中的许多答案解释了什么是竞态条件。我试图解释为什么这个术语在软件行业被称为竞争条件。

为什么叫竞态条件?

竞态条件不仅与软件有关，也与硬件有关。实际上，这个术语最初是由硬件行业创造的。

根据维基百科:

这个术语起源于两个信号相互竞争的想法 首先影响输出。 逻辑电路中的竞态:

软件行业没有对这个术语进行修改，这使得它有点难以理解。

你需要做一些替换来把它映射到软件世界:

"两个信号" ==> "两个线程"/"两个进程" "影响输出" ==> "影响一些共享状态"

因此，软件行业中的竞争条件是指“两个线程”/“两个进程”相互竞争以“影响某种共享状态”，而共享状态的最终结果将取决于一些微妙的时间差，而时间差可能是由某些特定的线程/进程启动顺序、线程/进程调度等引起的。

Race conditions occur in multi-threaded applications or multi-process systems. A race condition, at its most basic, is anything that makes the assumption that two things not in the same thread or process will happen in a particular order, without taking steps to ensure that they do. This happens commonly when two threads are passing messages by setting and checking member variables of a class both can access. There's almost always a race condition when one thread calls sleep to give another thread time to finish a task (unless that sleep is in a loop, with some checking mechanism).

防止竞争条件的工具依赖于语言和操作系统，但一些常见的工具是互斥锁、临界区和信号。互斥锁在你想确保你是唯一一个在做某事的时候很有用。当你想确保别人已经完成某件事时，信号是很好的。最小化共享资源还有助于防止意外行为

Detecting race conditions can be difficult, but there are a couple signs. Code which relies heavily on sleeps is prone to race conditions, so first check for calls to sleep in the affected code. Adding particularly long sleeps can also be used for debugging to try and force a particular order of events. This can be useful for reproducing the behavior, seeing if you can make it disappear by changing the timing of things, and for testing solutions put in place. The sleeps should be removed after debugging.

但是，如果某个问题只在某些机器上断断续续地发生，则是存在竞争条件的标志性标志。常见的错误是崩溃和死锁。使用日志记录，您应该能够找到受影响的区域并从那里返回。

竞态条件是并发编程中的一种情况，其中两个并发线程或进程争夺资源，最终状态取决于谁先获得资源。

下面是一个经典的银行账户余额示例，它将帮助新手轻松理解Java中的线程w.r.t.竞争条件:

public class BankAccount {

/**
 * @param args
 */
int accountNumber;
double accountBalance;

public synchronized boolean Deposit(double amount){
    double newAccountBalance=0;
    if(amount<=0){
        return false;
    }
    else {
        newAccountBalance = accountBalance+amount;
        accountBalance=newAccountBalance;
        return true;
    }

}
public synchronized boolean Withdraw(double amount){
    double newAccountBalance=0;
    if(amount>accountBalance){
        return false;
    }
    else{
        newAccountBalance = accountBalance-amount;
        accountBalance=newAccountBalance;
        return true;
    }
}

public static void main(String[] args) {
    // TODO Auto-generated method stub
    BankAccount b = new BankAccount();
    b.accountBalance=2000;
    System.out.println(b.Withdraw(3000));

}