For example, the class below generates unique identifiers local to each thread. A thread's id is assigned the first time it invokes UniqueThreadIdGenerator.getCurrentThreadId() and remains unchanged on subsequent calls.

 import java.util.concurrent.atomic.AtomicInteger;

 public class UniqueThreadIdGenerator {

     private static final AtomicInteger uniqueId = new AtomicInteger(0);

     private static final ThreadLocal < Integer > uniqueNum = 
         new ThreadLocal < Integer > () {
             @Override protected Integer initialValue() {
                 return uniqueId.getAndIncrement();
         }
     };
 
     public static int getCurrentThreadId() {
         return uniqueId.get();
     }
 } // UniqueThreadIdGenerator
 

Each thread holds an implicit reference to its copy of a thread-local variable as long as the thread is alive and the ThreadLocal instance is accessible; after a thread goes away, all of its copies of thread-local instances are subject to garbage collection (unless other references to these copies exist).