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Java Platform 1.2
Beta 4

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Class java.lang.ref.Reference

java.lang.Object
  |
  +--java.lang.ref.Reference

Direct Known Subclasses:

PhantomReference, SoftReference, WeakReference

public abstract class Reference

extends Object

The Reference class contains the core abstractions for reference objects. Reference objects reify references in much the same way that Class objects reify Java classes. That is, a reference object encapsulates a reference to some other object so that the reference itself may be examined and manipulated like any other object.

The methods defined in this class allow a program to be notified some time after the collector detects a change in the reachability of a given object. They also allow a program to maintain a reference to an object that does not prevent the object from being considered for reclamation by the garbage collector.

Three types of reference objects are supported, each weaker than the last: soft, weak, and phantom. Each type corresponds to a different level of reachability, as defined below. Soft references are for implementing caches, weak references are for implementing mappings that do not prevent their keys (or values) from being reclaimed, and phantom references are for scheduling pre-mortem cleanup actions in a more flexible way than is possible with the Java finalization mechanism.

Each reference-object type is implemented by subclass of the Reference class. An instance of one of these subclasses encapsulates a single reference to a particular object, called the referent. Each subclass provides methods for getting and clearing the reference. Aside from the clearing operation Reference objects are otherwise immutable, so no set operation is provided. A program may further subclass these subclasses, adding whatever fields and methods are required for its purposes, or it may use these subclasses without change.

Notification

A program may request to be notified of changes in an object's reachability by registering an appropriate reference object with a reference queue at the time the reference object is created. Some time after the garbage collector determines that the reachability of the referent has changed to the value corresponding to the type of the reference, it will add the reference to the associated queue. At this point, the reference is considered to be enqueued. The program may remove references from a queue either by polling or by blocking until a reference becomes available. Reference queues are implemented by the ReferenceQueue class.

The relationship between a registered reference object and its queue is one-sided. That is, a queue does not keep track of the references that are registered with it. If a registered reference becomes unreachable itself, then it will never be enqueued. It is the responsibility of the program using reference objects to ensure that the objects remain reachable for as long as the program is interested in their referents.

While some programs will choose to dedicate a thread to removing reference objects from one or more queues and processing them, this is by no means necessary. A tactic that often works well is to examine a reference queue in the course of performing some other fairly-frequent action. For example, a hashtable that uses weak references to implement weak keys could poll its reference queue each time the table is accessed. Because the poll method simply checks an internal data structure, this check will add little overhead to the hashtable access methods.

Automatically-cleared references

A soft or weak reference is automatically cleared by the collector at the same time it is added to the queue with which it is registered, if any. If there is more than one soft reference to an object, all such references will be cleared (and enqueued, if need be) simultaneously and atomically from the standpoint of the program; the same is true for weak references. Thus soft and weak references need not be registered with a queue in order to be useful, while phantom references do. Similarly, an object that is reachable via phantom references will remain so until all such references are cleared or themselves become unreachable.

Reachability

Going from strongest to weakest, the different levels of reachability reflect the life cycle of an object. They are operationally defined as follows:

• An object is strongly reachable if it can be reached by some thread without traversing any reference objects. A newly-created object is strongly reachable by the thread that created it.
• An object is softly reachable if it is not strongly reachable but can be reached by traversing a soft reference.
• An object is weakly reachable if it is not softly reachable but can be reached by traversing a weak reference. When the weak references to a weakly-reachable object are cleared, the object becomes eligible for finalization.
• Finally, an object is phantom reachable if it is not weakly reachable, it has been finalized, and some phantom reference refers to it. An object becomes unreachable, and eligible for reclamation, when the last phantom reference to it is cleared or becomes unreachable itself.

Since:

JDK1.2

See Also:

ReferenceQueue, SoftReference, WeakReference, PhantomReference

Method Summary

void	clear() Clear this reference object.
boolean	enqueue() Add this reference to the queue with which it was registered.
Object	get() Return the object to which this reference object refers.
boolean	isEnqueued() Tell whether or not this reference object has been enqueued.

Methods inherited from class java.lang.Object

clone , equals , finalize , getClass , hashCode , notify , notifyAll , toString , wait , wait , wait

Method Detail

get

public Object get()

Return the object to which this reference object refers. If this reference has been cleared, either by the program or by the garbage collector, then return null.

clear

public void clear()

Clear this reference object.

isEnqueued

public boolean isEnqueued()

Tell whether or not this reference object has been enqueued. If this reference object was not registered with a queue when it was created, then this method will always return false.

enqueue

public boolean enqueue()

Add this reference to the queue with which it was registered. Return true if this was done successfully; return false if the reference has already been enqueued, or if it was not registered with a queue when it was created.