I had came across different suggestion of stopping a thread. May I know, which is the correct way? Or it depends?

Using Thread Variable http://download.oracle.com/javase/1.4.2/docs/guide/misc/threadPrimitiveDeprecation.html

private volatile Thread blinker;

public void stop() {
    blinker = null;
}

public void run() {
    Thread thisThread = Thread.currentThread();
    while (blinker == thisThread) {
        try {
            thisThread.sleep(interval);
        } catch (InterruptedException e){
        }
        repaint();
    }
}

Using boolean flag

private volatile boolean flag;

public void stop() {
    flag = false;
}

public void run() {
    while (flag) {
        try {
            thisThread.sleep(interval);
        } catch (InterruptedException e){
        }
        repaint();
    }
}

Using Thread Variable together with interrupt

private volatile Thread blinker;

public void stop() {
    blinker.interrupt();
    blinker = null;
}

public void run() {
    Thread thisThread = Thread.currentThread();
    while (!thisThread.isInterrupted() && blinker == thisThread) {
        try {
            thisThread.sleep(interval);
        } catch (InterruptedException e){
        }
        repaint();
    }
}