Thread safety in Singleton

13
votes

I understand that double locking in Java is broken, so what are the best ways to make Singletons Thread Safe in Java? The first thing that springs to my mind is:

class Singleton{
    private static Singleton instance;

    private Singleton(){}

    public static synchronized Singleton getInstance(){
        if(instance == null) instance = new Singleton();
        return instance;
    }
}

Does this work? if so, is it the best way (I guess that depends on circumstances, so stating when a particular technique is best, would be useful)

5
javamultithreadingsingleton
change return new Singleton() to instance = new Singleton() – aioobe
oops, well spotted! Wrote without testing... – Robert
Can someone tell me why people are so concerned with lazy initialization of Singletons? <RANT>The usage pattern for them is, using this example: Singleton.getInstance( ). In 99% of cases there should be no other reasons to load Singleton class without calling its getInstance method. If the instance is static final then it will be initialized when Singleton class is loaded, period, and will be thread safe. While LazyHolder pattern does work I think it's unnecessary overkill and an anti-pattern, as well as singleton is anti-pattern itself.</RANT> – Alexander Pogrebnyak
Surely, if it creation is expensive there would be times when building on load is too costly, as the object will stay on the heap even if it is never used. – Robert
@Robert. That's the point. The only reason to load singleton class is to call getInstance right away. Without this call there is absolutely no need to load a singleton class. – Alexander Pogrebnyak

5 Answers

25
votes

Josh Bloch recommends using a single-element enum type to implement singletons (see Effective Java 2nd Edition, Item 3: Enforce the singleton property with a private constructor or an enum type).

Some people think this is a hack, since it doesn't clearly convey intent, but it does work.

The following example is taken straight from the book.

public enum Elvis {
   INSTANCE;

   public void leaveTheBuilding() { ... }
}

Here is his closing arguments:

This approach [...] is more concise, provides the serialization machinery for free, and provides an ironclad guarantee against multiple instantiations, even in the face of sophisticated serialization or reflection attacks. While this approach has yet to be widely adopted, a single-element enum type is the best way to implement a singleton.

On enum constant singleton guarantee

JLS 8.9. Enums

An enum type has no instances other than those defined by its enum constants. It is a compile-time error to attempt to explicitly instantiate an enum type (§15.9.1).

The final clone method in Enum ensures that enum constants can never be cloned, and the special treatment by the serialization mechanism ensures that duplicate instances are never created as a result of deserialization. Reflective instantiation of enum types is prohibited. Together, these four things ensure that no instances of an enum type exist beyond those defined by the enum constants.

On lazy initialization

The following snippet:

public class LazyElvis {
    enum Elvis {
        THE_ONE;
        Elvis() {
            System.out.println("I'M STILL ALIVE!!!");
        }       
    }
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        System.out.println("La-dee-daaa...");
        System.out.println(Elvis.THE_ONE);
    }
}

Produces the following output:

La-dee-daaa...
I'M STILL ALIVE!!!
THE_ONE

As you can see, THE_ONE constant is not instantiated through the constructor until the first time it's accessed.

8
votes

I see no problem with your implementation (other than the fact that the lock for the singleton-monitor may be used by other methods, for other reasons, and thus, unnecessarily, prevent some other thread from getting the instance). This could be avoided by introducing an extra Object lock to lock on.

This Wikipedia article suggests another method:

public class Something {
    private Something() {
    }

    private static class LazyHolder {
        private static final Something INSTANCE = new Something();
    }

    public static Something getInstance() {
        return LazyHolder.INSTANCE;
    }
}

From the article:

This implementation is a well-performing and concurrent implementation valid in all versions of Java.
...
The implementation relies on the well-specified initialization phase of execution within the Java Virtual Machine (JVM); see section 12.4 of Java Language Specification (JLS) for details.

5
votes

My preference is to just do:

class Singleton {
    private static final INSTANCE = new Singleton();

    private Singleton(){}

    public Singleton instance(){
        return INSTANCE;
    }
 }

It is rare that you need lazy initialization. You should always start with eager initialization and only change to lazy initialization if you see problems. Unless you have measured and pinpointed Singleton instantiation as the culprit of performance problem, just use eager initialization. It's simpler and more performant.

You could use enum for sure, but personally I don't bother because the benefit over normal eager instantiation is security (against reflection attack), and most of the time my code is vulnerable to such attacks anyways :p

2
votes

Josh Bloch recommends 2 solutions:

1) worser:

class Singleton {

   public static Singleton instance = new Singleton();

   ...
}

2) better:

public enum Singleton {

   INSTANCE;

   ...
}
1
votes

You can use this snippet of code from wiki

public class Singleton {
   // Private constructor prevents instantiation from other classes
   private Singleton() {}

   /**
    * SingletonHolder is loaded on the first execution of Singleton.getInstance() 
    * or the first access to SingletonHolder.INSTANCE, not before.
    */
   private static class SingletonHolder { 
     private static final Singleton INSTANCE = new Singleton();
   }

   public static Singleton getInstance() {
     return SingletonHolder.INSTANCE;
   }
 }