Re: SingletonFactory and safe publication
On 12/2/2014 6:52 PM, Arne Vajh?j wrote:
On 12/2/2014 6:20 PM, Eric Sosman wrote:
On 12/1/2014 9:16 PM, John wrote:
Hi:
I am reading this
article(http://shipilev.net/blog/2014/safe-public-construction/). It
says the following code is GOOD:
public class SafeDCLFactory {
private volatile Singleton instance;
public Singleton get() {
if (instance == null) { // check 1
synchronized(this) {
if (instance == null) { // check 2
instance = new Singleton();
}
}
}
return instance;
}
}
I feel disagree, by learning from this
article(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double-checked_locking).
Brian Goetz agrees that this code is incorrect, calling it
"a commonly suggested nonfix." He explains that although the
accesses to `instance' will be consistent because `volatile'
ensures it, any accesses to the member variables of the new
Singleton are *not* consistent (unless they are `volatile', too).
You could get a sequence like this:
Thread T1 finds `instance' null, obtains the lock, finds
that `instance' is still null, and calls the constructor.
The constructor (running in T1) stores initial values in
the member variables of the new Singleton. We presume
that at least some of these variables are not `volatile'.
The constructor finishes, and now T1 stores the new
reference to `instance'. Because `instance' is `volatile',
T1 ensures that the new value is actually flushed from
store buffers and write caches and so on, and appears in
stable memory.
Thread T2 now finds `instance' non-null, and starts using
it to refer to the Singleton's member variables (either
directly or by calling the Singleton's methods).
Unfortunately, the values stored by Singleton's constructor
may still be sitting in caches and what-not, and may not yet
have been flushed to stable memory. Even if the constructor
running in T1 stored 42 in some member variable, T2 may
read the value as zero.
... because there is no "happens-before" between T1's storing
of the value and T2's reading of it.
In short, making sure that `instance' is safe is not sufficient;
you also need to worry about everything `instance' refers to, directly
or indirectly.
http://www.javaworld.com/article/2074979/java-concurrency/double-checked-locking--clever--but-broken.html
But that is with the pre-5 memory model (the article is from 2001).
They changed the treatment of volatile in the memory model
in Java 5.
Or have I misunderstood something?
After a fair amount of studying JLS Chapter 17, my conclusion is:
"My head hurts." :(
17.4 describes the memory model, and the first part is not too
difficult for my comprehension: actions, program order, synchronization
order, happens-before order -- all these make sense to me. Somewhere
near the end of 17.4.5, though, I start to bog down: The JLS starts
talking about whether a read is "allowed" to see the effect of a write,
whether a set of actions is "happens-before consistent," whether an
execution is "well-formed," and so on. Just when it looked (to me)
like we'd reached the end of the story by defining happens-before,
the story continues in a way that makes my head ache ...
So I turned to the less formal but more readable "Java Concurrency
in Practice" by Goetz et al., and found something understandable:
"Subsequent changes in the JMM (Java 5.0 and later) have enabled
DCL to work if `resource' is made `volatile', ..."
.... indicating that you're right and I was wrong. Thanks for the
correction.
However, Goetz & Co. also opine that DCL is less useful now than
it once was (ironic: It was useful when it didn't work, and now that
it works it's useless). Uncontended synchronization, they say, is a
lot faster than it used to be, so working hard to avoid it is effort
misdirected. Instead, they recommend the shorter/simpler/safer
"holder class" method, here paraphrased in the O.P.'s terms:
public class SingletonFactory {
private static class SingletonHolder {
static final Singleton instance = new Singleton();
}
public Singleton get() {
return SingletonHolder.instance;
}
}
--
esosman@comcast-dot-net.invalid
"Don't be afraid of work. Make work afraid of you." -- TLM