5 flavors of singleton!
Soumyadeep Chakraborty
27259
Design PatternObject-Oriented DesignInterview

There are several flavors:

  1. Eager initialization :
public class Singleton {
	private static Singleton instance = new Singleton(); //eagerness
	private Singleton() {
		//init
	}
	
	public static Singleton getInstance() {
		return instance;
	}
}
  1. Lazy initialization : (Consider this if init is resource heavy and if it is required in only some application flows)
public class Singleton {
	private static Singleton instance;
	private Singleton() {
		//init
	}
	
	public static Singleton getInstance() {
		if(instance == null) { //laziness
			instance = new Singleton();
		}
		return instance;
	}
}
  1. Thread safe Lazy initialization : (In the lazy init construct above, if there are two or more threads accessing the getInstance method, it might lead to the creation of spurious multiple instances of the singleton!)
public class Singleton {
	private static Singleton instance;
	private Singleton() {
		//init
	}
	
	public static synchronized Singleton getInstance() { //thread safety
		if(instance == null) {
			instance = new Singleton();
		}
		return instance;
	}
}
  1. Double checked locking : (Note that in the above approach, the race condition can be reached only once in the entire application lifecycle, ie when instance is null! What we are doing is introducing a LOT of overhead wth the synchronized keyword. So we need a way to ensure that the locking protection only applies once)
public class Singleton {
	private volatile static Singleton instance;
	private Singleton() {
		//init
	}
	
	public static Singleton getInstance() {
		if(instance == null) {
			synchronized(this) { //only lock the FIRST time
				if(instance == null) { //The "double" check
					instance = new Singleton();
				}
			}
		}
		return instance;
	}
}
  1. Using an enum! : (The simplest way to define a singleton! And guess what! Enums are lazily initialized by the JVM, ie they are instantiated the first time they are accessed! The creation of an enum is thread safe too, the JVM ensures that! :D)
public enum Singleton {
    INSTANCE;
}

Jesus that was rather short!

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