public class ThreadLocal<T> 

/**
 * This class provides thread-local variables.  These variables differ from
 * their normal counterparts in that each thread that accesses one (via its
 * <tt>get</tt> or <tt>set</tt> method) has its own, independently initialized
 * copy of the variable.  <tt>ThreadLocal</tt> instances are typically private
 * static fields in classes that wish to associate state with a thread (e.g.,
 * a user ID or Transaction ID).
 *
 * <p>For example, the class below generates unique identifiers local to each
 * thread.
 * A thread‘s id is assigned the first time it invokes <tt>ThreadId.get()</tt>
 * and remains unchanged on subsequent calls.
 * <pre>
 * import java.util.concurrent.atomic.AtomicInteger;
 *
 * public class ThreadId {
 *     // Atomic integer containing the next thread ID to be assigned
 *     private static final AtomicInteger nextId = new AtomicInteger(0);
 *
 *     // Thread local variable containing each thread‘s ID
 *     private static final ThreadLocal&lt;Integer> threadId =
 *         new ThreadLocal&lt;Integer>() {
 *             &#64;Override protected Integer initialValue() {
 *                 return nextId.getAndIncrement();
 *         }
 *     };
 *
 *     // Returns the current thread‘s unique ID, assigning it if necessary
 *     public static int get() {
 *         return threadId.get();
 *     }
 * }
 * </pre>
 * <p>Each thread holds an implicit reference to its copy of a thread-local
 * variable as long as the thread is alive and the <tt>ThreadLocal</tt>
 * 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).
 *
 * @author  Josh Bloch and Doug Lea
 * @since   1.2
 */

    /**
     * Sets the current thread‘s copy of this thread-local variable
     * to the specified value.  Most subclasses will have no need to
     * override this method, relying solely on the {@link #initialValue}
     * method to set the values of thread-locals.
     *
     * @param value the value to be stored in the current thread‘s copy of
     *        this thread-local.
     */
    public void set(T value) {
        Thread t = Thread.currentThread();
        ThreadLocalMap map = getMap(t);
        if (map != null)
            map.set(this, value);
        else
            createMap(t, value);
    }

protected T initialValue() {
    return null;
}

    /**
     * ThreadLocalMap is a customized hash map suitable only for
     * maintaining thread local values. No operations are exported
     * outside of the ThreadLocal class. The class is package private to
     * allow declaration of fields in class Thread.  To help deal with
     * very large and long-lived usages, the hash table entries use
     * WeakReferences for keys. However, since reference queues are not
     * used, stale entries are guaranteed to be removed only when
     * the table starts running out of space.
     */
    static class ThreadLocalMap

static class Entry extends WeakReference<ThreadLocal> {
     /** The value associated with this ThreadLocal. */
     Object value;
 
     Entry(ThreadLocal k, Object v) {
         super(k);
         value = v;
     }
 }

private Entry[] table;

 public T get() {
     Thread t = Thread.currentThread();
     ThreadLocalMap map = getMap(t);
     if (map != null) {
         ThreadLocalMap.Entry e = map.getEntry(this);
         if (e != null)
             return (T)e.value;
     }
     return setInitialValue();
 }