Friday, September 15, 2023

How to create thread safe Singleton in Java - Java Singleton Example

Thread safe Singleton means a Singleton class that returns exactly the same instance even if exposed to multiple threads. Singleton in Java has been a classical design pattern like Factory method pattern, or Decorator design pattern and has been used a lot even inside JDK like java.lang.Runtime is an example of Singleton class. Singleton pattern ensures that exactly one instance of the class will remain in the Java program at any time. In our last post, 10 Interview questions on Singleton in Java we have discussed many different questions asked on Singleton pattern, One of them was writing Thread safe singleton in Java.

Prior to Java 5 double-checked locking mechanism is used to create a thread-safe singleton in Java which breaks if one Thread doesn't see an instance created by another thread at the same time and eventually you will end up with more than one instance of Singleton class. 

From Java 5 onwards volatile variable guarantee can be used to write thread-safe singleton by using double-checked locking pattern. I personally don't prefer that way as there are many other simpler alternatives to write thread-safe singleton is available like using static field to initialize Singleton instance or using Enum as Singleton in Java. Let’s see examples of both ways to create thread-safe Singleton in Java.

Btw, In order to best understand design patterns, you need to work out some scenarios, examples, etc. It's best to get this kind of knowledge as part of your work but even if you don't get there, you can supplement them by these online design pattern courses and doing some object-oriented software design exercises. 

How to create thread safe Singleton in Java - Java Singleton Example



Java Singleton Example – Thread-safe Singleton in Java using Enum

How to write thread safe Singleton in Java with exampleThis is one of the examples of Enum which I missed while writing 10 Examples of Enum in Java. Using Enum to create Singleton is by far the most simple and effective way to create thread-safe Singleton in Java, as the thread-safety guarantee is provided by the Java programming language itself. 

You don't need to bother about the thread-safety issues. Since Enum instances are by default final in Java, it also provides safety against multiple instances due to serialization



One point which is worth remembering is that, when we talk about thread-safe Singleton, we are talking about thread-safety during instance creation of Singleton class and not when we call any method of Singleton class. 

If your Singleton class maintain any state and contains method to modify that state, you need to write code to avoid and thread-safety and synchronization issues. Any way here is code example of creating thread safe Singleton in Java using Enum.

 public enum Singleton{
    INSTANCE;
 
    public void show(){
        System.out.println("Singleton using Enum in Java");
    }
}

//You can access this Singleton as Singleton.INSTANCE and call any method like below
Singleton.INSTANCE.show();

If this suits your need than this is the most easy way of writing thread-safe Singleton in Java. Using Enum as Singleton also provide couple of more benefits which you can find out on Why Enum Singleton are better in Java.


Java Singleton Example - Thread Safe Singleton using Static field Initialization

You can also create thread safe Singleton in Java by creating Singleton instance during class loading. static fields are initialized during class loading and Classloader will guarantee that instance will not be visible until its fully created. Here is example of creating thread safe singleton in Java using static factory method. 

Only disadvantage of this implementing Singleton patter using static field is that this is not a lazy initialization and Singleton is initialized even before any clients call there getInstance() method.

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

    public static Singleton getInstance(){
        return INSTANCE;
    }
    public void show(){
        System.out.println("Singleon using static initialization in Java");
    }
}

//Here is how to access this Singleton class
Singleton.getInstance().show();

here we are not creating Singleton instance inside getInstance() method instead it will be created by ClassLoader. Also, private constructor makes impossible to create another instance, except one case. You can still access private constructor by reflection and calling setAccessible(true). By the way You can still prevent creating another instance of Singleton by this way by throwing Exception from constructor.


That's all on how to create thread-safe Singleton in Java. Both the approach are safe with the thread-safety issue but my personal favorite is using Enum because of its simplicity, prevention of multiple instance against Serialization attack and concise code.

Other Java design pattern tutorials from Javarevisited Blog

And lastly, one question for you? What is the best way to create Singleton in Java? Enum, Double checked locking, static singleton variable, holder pattern or anything else? 

12 comments :

Anonymous said...

public class Singleton also needs to be declared final, to avoid being subclassed (and, for example, instantiate a new Singleton object via reflection)

Javin @Linkded List vs ArrayList said...

@Anonymous, does it really necessary to make Singleton final, doesn't making constructor private will prevent it from being extended? Regarding Reflection, I think only way to prevent creating instance is throwing Exception from constructor itself.

Unknown said...

How about static inner class with singleton instance?

Alexander said...

Hi, and Happy New Year

Showed singleton is only one of more thread-safe singleton realizations.

Each of which have own pros and cons.

Actually this have one problem only if you have...
Imagin you have huge entrprise platfrom that have several class loaders. Each class loader work simultaneously. In this case, class loaders can create several singleton instances from only one class.

Anonymous said...

Writing a thread safe singleton for multithreaded environment is not a joke. Anything with threading requires serious knowledge of Java multithreading concept. I like your blog for spreading words and experience on Java Singleton multithreading issues.

SARAL SAXENA said...

If you guys are looking for thread safety and the combination of lazy initialization..then follow Initialization-on-demand holder idiom..

public class Singleton {
private Singleton() {
}

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

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

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.
When the class Something is loaded by the JVM, the class goes through initialization. Since the class does not have any static variables to initialize, the initialization completes trivially. The static class definition LazyHolder within it is not initialized until the JVM determines that LazyHolder must be executed. The static class LazyHolder is only executed when the static method getInstance is invoked on the class Something, and the first time this happens the JVM will load and initialize the LazyHolder class. The initialization of the LazyHolder class results in static variable INSTANCE being initialized by executing the (private) constructor for the outer class Something. Since the class initialization phase is guaranteed by the JLS to be serial, i.e., non-concurrent, no further synchronization is required in the static getInstance method during loading and initialization. And since the initialization phase writes the static variable INSTANCE in a serial operation, all subsequent concurrent invocations of the getInstance will return the same correctly initialized INSTANCE without incurring any additional synchronization overhead.

Anonymous said...

Why Singleton is not thread-safe? Sorry but I didn't get the problem with Singleton and multiple threads. Can you please explain me in Simple words.

Bimales said...

as per given example... corrected class should be like below

package org.tutorial.designpattern.singleton;

public final class SingletonClass {

private static SingletonClass singletonClass = new SingletonClass();

private SingletonClass(){}

public static SingletonClass getInstance(){
return singletonClass;
}
public int showHashCode(){
return singletonClass.hashCode();
}
}

VARDHAN said...

For the following code
public enum SingletonConnection
{
INSTANCE;

private Connection conn;
private SingletonConnection ()
{
//... some code heavy opetation
//. some code heavy operation
// come Code heavy operation
//conn = ConstructConnection(); heavy operation
}

public Connection getConnection()
{
return connection;
}
}


Basically I want to have heavy Enum Constant

Now under the following scenario how jvm guarantees that no two connection objects are initialized;
If two threads access SingletonConnection.INSTANCE, where we get a case where two threads executing constructor code at same point of time and will two Connection Objects are initialize?. If so how to avoid.

Basically I want to have heavy Enum Constant which is a heavy operation. How can I can I acieve



javin paul said...

Enum constants are created by JVM and this is a single threaded operation guaranteed by JVM, so you don't need to worry about it. That's why Enum Singletons are better than normal one because you don't have to do anything special to guarantee that thread-safe creation of Singleton.

Aron Sinoai said...

For lazy singleton pattern see this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Initialization-on-demand_holder_idiom

Anonymous said...

Threadsafe Singletonclass can be created using below code without using synchronization.
Here instance will be created during class loading time only so no chance of creating more than one instances.

public class ThreadSafeSingleton {

private static final Object instance = new Object();

protected ThreadSafeSingleton() {
}

// Runtime initialization
// By defualt ThreadSafe
public static Object getInstance() {
return instance;
}
}

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