Can I access the Lock used by a synchronized block in Java?

Question

Having a simple List:

private final List<Item> lst = new ArrayList();

When I need synchronization, I used to do the following:

synchronized (lst) {
    // Some code
}

Now, I need to create a Condition object using Lock.newCondition() , can I access the underlying lock used by synchronized{} to use it to create my condition, or should I remove synchronized blocks and use a custom Lock object ?

Answer 1

If you need a Condition object, is a clear sign that intrinsic locking are not enough for you. You will need to use

    Lock lock = new ReentrantLock();
    Condition condition = lock.newCondition();

Anyway, if you are worried about performances, that is not a problem with modern virtual machines. Explicit locking perform as well as intrinsic one.