JFace Data Binding/Realm

Realm is the core concept of JFace Data Binding in regards to synchronization. A realm can be thought of as a special thread, or a lock, that serializes access to a set of observables in that realm. Each observable belongs to a Realm. It can only be accessed from that realm, and it will always fire change events on that realm. One important example of a realm is the SWT UI thread. Like for the SWT UI thread, you can execute code within a realm by using Realm.asyncExec(); in fact, the SWT realm implementation just delegates to Display.asyncExec(). This means that while the data binding framework can be used in a multi-threaded environment, each observable is essentially single-threaded. Java bean observables implement this contract on the observable side, but don't require it on the Java beans side: Even if a bean fires a PropertyChangeEvent on a different thread, the change events originating from the observable will happen within its realm. To bridge between observables in different realms, use a data binding context - you can bind two observables even if they belong to different realms and the bindings take care of this for you by using Realm.asyncExec() where necessary.