Can we make an array volatile? Any caveats?

The Fact:

Yes, you can declare an array as volatile: private volatile int[] data;.

The Caveat (Crucial!):

• Marking an array as volatile only makes the reference to the array volatile.
• It does not make the individual elements inside the array volatile.
• If you change data[0] = 5, there is no visibility guarantee for other threads.

The Solution:

Use AtomicReferenceArray from java.util.concurrent.atomic.