Purpose of taking volatile variable in ThreadLocal instance

Question

This is one of questions asked to me in one of the technical talks.

public class MyClass {

    volatile int i;
}

I am using the above MyClass as a ThreadLocal, so what is the use of taking any volatile variable inside this?

final ThreadLocal<MyClass> threadLocal = new ThreadLocal<MyClass>();

Answer 1

If that instance is used exclusively with ThreadLocal and not passed around, there doesn't appear to be much point in volatile.

Note, however, that MyClass is just a class like any other: there's nothing preventing it from being used in contexts not involving thread-local storage. In those contexts it could well make sense for the variable to be volatile.