PRB: When You Change the Name of a Thread in Visual J# .NET, the New Name Does Not Appear in the Debugger (818439)

MORE INFORMATION

Steps to Reproduce the Behavior

1. In Visual Studio .NET, use Visual J# to create a Console Application project.
2. In Class1.jsl, replace the existing code with the following sample code:

   public class TestThreads
   {
   	public static void main(String[] args)
   	{
   		ThreadSample ts1 = new ThreadSample("Newton");
   		ThreadSample ts2 = new ThreadSample();
   		ts1.setName("Einstein");
   		ts2.setName("Galileo");
   		ts1.start();
   		ts2.start();
   	}
   }
   
   class ThreadSample extends Thread
   {
   	public ThreadSample()
   	{
   		super();
   	}
   
   	public ThreadSample(String name)
   	{
   		super(name);
   	}
   
   	public void run()
   	{
   		int i = 0;
   		String threadName = Thread.currentThread().getName();
   
   		while(i < 10) //Set break points here, and then run the application.
   		{
   			try 
   			{ 
   				Thread.currentThread().setName(threadName + i);
   				sleep(i); 
   			} 
   			catch(Exception e) {}
   			System.out.println(getName() + " : " + i++);
   		}
   	}
   }

3. Set the breakpoint at the line in the code that has a comment that indicates the position.
4. Build the application.
5. On the Debug menu, click Start to start debugging the application.
6. On the Debug menu, point to Windows, and then click Threads.
7. In the Threads debug windows, notice that after you set the name of a thread, you cannot change the name later by setting the Name property.
   
   The thread name of the first thread appears in the debugger as Newton, although the code resets the Name property to Einstein later. When the second thread appears, it has the name Galileo. However, when you change the names of the threads in the Run method, the new names do not appear in the debugger.

You can never change the name of the main thread of the application by setting the Name property because the name for the underlying user runtime thread is already set by using the name main.

Except that the name does not appear in the debugger, the Name property works as expected. If you want to retrieve the name of the thread that has been set through the Name property, retrieve the name through the Name property again.