RFR 9: 8138696 : java.lang.ref.Cleaner - an easy to use alternative to finalization

[Peter Levart]

On 11/03/2015 10:42 PM, Roger Riggs wrote:
>>>> I’m in two minds that it sounds sensible for this Cleaner API to 
>>>> extend for soft/weak references whereas I am not certain of the use 
>>>> cases.   Anyone can share the known use cases that would be helpful.
>>>>
>>> Besides the cases already mentioned on the thread...  Anyone?
> A developer at JavaOne wanted more control over the policy for 
> clearing SoftReferences
> possibly taking into account the cost of creating the cache entry.
> A technique I proposed was to use a SoftReference, not for the cached 
> resource itself
> but as a sentinel for the VM needing to free 'soft' memory.
>
> One possible use for a SoftCleaner is to implement a sensible cleaning 
> strategy for
> a Cache.  The CleaningFunction was would be triggered when freeing 
> SoftReferences
> was needed by VM GC policy and could be used as a hook to use its own 
> algorithm
> to free some of its cached values. 

...and register another Soft CleaningFunction at the same time... 
Clever! So you get periodic call-backs from GC when GC thinks it's time 
to do some soft cleaning, and implement the strategy of cleaning the 
data structure yourself, like:

void doPeriodicCleaningWhenGcThinksItsTime(Cleaner cleaner, Runnable 
strategy) {
     cleaner.softCleanable(new Object(), () -> {
         strategy.run();
         doPeriodicCleaningWhenGcThinksItsTime(cleaner, strategy);
     });
}


Regards, Peter