An object that creates new threads on demand.

  An object that creates new threads on demand. Using thread factories removes hardwiring of calls to new Thread, enabling applications to use special thread subclasses, priorities, etc.

The simplest implementation of this interface is just:

 class SimpleThreadFactory implements ThreadFactory {
   public Thread newThread(Runnable r) {
     return new Thread(r);
   }
 }
 

The Executors.defaultThreadFactory() method provides a more useful simple implementation, that sets the created thread context to known values before returning it.