If more than one thread can access a field should it be marked as volatile?

Question

Reading a few threads (common concurrency problems, volatile keyword, memory model) I\'m confused about concurrency issues in Java.

I have a lot of fields that are acces

Answer 1

Well, you've read those other questions and I presume you've read the answers already, so I'll just highlight some key points:

1. are they going to change? if not, you don't need volatile
2. if yes, then is the value of a field related to another? if yes, go to point 4
3. how many threads will change it? if only 1, then volatile is all you need
4. if the answer to number 2 is "no" or more than one threads is going to write to it, then volatile alone is not enough, you'll probably need to synchronize the access

Added:
If the field reference an Object, then it will have fields of its own and all those consideration also applies to these fields.