Background thread directly accessing UI anyway - javafx

Question

Here is my code, can someone explain why it works every time?
package dingding;
import javafx.application.Application;
import javafx.event.ActionEvent;
import javafx.event.EventHandler;
import javafx.scene.Scene;
import javafx.scene.control.Button;
import javafx.scene.control.TextField;
import javafx.scene.layout.VBox;
import javafx.scene.layout.HBox;
import javafx.stage.Stage;
public class Dingding extends Application {
TextField tfAuto = new TextField("0");
AutoRunThread runner = new AutoRunThread();
boolean shouldStop = false;
private class AutoRunThread extends Thread {
#Override
public void run() {
while (true) {
int i = Integer.parseInt(tfAuto.getText());
++i;
tfAuto.setText(String.valueOf(i));
try {
Thread.sleep(1000);
} catch (Throwable t) {
}
if (shouldStop) {
runner = null;
shouldStop = false;
return;
}
}
}
}
#Override
public void start(Stage primaryStage) {
Button btnStart = new Button("Increment Automatically");
Button btnStop = new Button("Stop Autotask");
btnStart.setOnAction(new EventHandler<ActionEvent>() {
#Override
public void handle(ActionEvent event) {
if (runner == null) {
runner = new AutoRunThread();
runner.setDaemon(true);
}
if (runner != null && !(runner.isAlive())) {
runner.start();
}
}
});
btnStop.setOnAction(new EventHandler<ActionEvent>() {
#Override
public void handle(ActionEvent event) {
shouldStop = true;
}
});
VBox rootBox = new VBox();
HBox autoBox = new HBox();
autoBox.getChildren().addAll(tfAuto, btnStart, btnStop);
rootBox.getChildren().addAll(autoBox);
Scene scene = new Scene(rootBox, 300, 250);
primaryStage.setTitle("Hello World!");
primaryStage.setScene(scene);
primaryStage.show();
}
/**
* #param args the command line arguments
*/
public static void main(String[] args) {
launch(args);
}
}

Answer 1

As I said in my comment, improperly synchronized code doesn't guarantee errors per se. However, that doesn't mean said code, when used in a multi-threaded context, is actually working—you're merely getting lucky. Eventually you'll run into undefined behavior such as corrupted state, stale values, and unexpected exceptions. This is because, without synchronization, actions performed by one thread are not guaranteed to be visible to any other thread. You need a happens-before relationship, better described in the package documentation of java.util.concurrent and this SO question.
JavaFX, like most UI frameworks/toolkits, is single threaded. This means there's a special thread—in this case, the JavaFX Application Thread— that is responsible for all UI related actions1. It is this thread, and this thread only, that must be used to access and/or modify state related to a "live" scene graph (i.e. nodes that are in a scene that's in a window that's showing2). Using any other thread can lead to the undefined behavior described above.
Some UI related functions actually ensure they're being called on the JavaFX Application Thread, usually throwing an IllegalStateException if not. However, the remaining functions will silently let you call them from any thread—but that doesn't mean it's safe to do so. This is done this way, I believe, because checking the thread in every UI related function is a maintenance nightmare and would incur a not-insignificant performance cost.
1. It's slightly more complicated that this; JavaFX also has a "prism render thread" and a "media thread". See Understanding JavaFX Architecture for more information. But note that, from an application developer's point of view, the only thread that matters is the JavaFX Application Thread.
2. This is documented by Node. Note that some nodes, such as WebView, are more restrictive when it comes to threading; this will be documented in the appropriate places.