Thread Safe singleton class

Question

I wrote a below Singleton class. I am not sure whether this is thread safe singleton class or not?

public class CassandraAstyanaxConnection {

    private static CassandraAstyanaxConnection _instance;
    private AstyanaxContext<Keyspace> context;
    private Keyspace keyspace;
    private ColumnFamily<String, String> emp_cf;



    public static synchronized CassandraAstyanaxConnection getInstance() {
        if (_instance == null) {
            _instance = new CassandraAstyanaxConnection();
        }
        return _instance;
    }

    /**
     * Creating Cassandra connection using Astyanax client
     *
     */
    private CassandraAstyanaxConnection() {

        context = new AstyanaxContext.Builder()
        .forCluster(ModelConstants.CLUSTER)
        .forKeyspace(ModelConstants.KEYSPACE)
        .withAstyanaxConfiguration(new AstyanaxConfigurationImpl()      
            .setDiscoveryType(NodeDiscoveryType.RING_DESCRIBE)
        )
        .withConnectionPoolConfiguration(new ConnectionPoolConfigurationImpl("MyConnectionPool")
            .setPort(9160)
            .setMaxConnsPerHost(1)
            .setSeeds("127.0.0.1:9160")
        )
        .withAstyanaxConfiguration(new AstyanaxConfigurationImpl()      
            .setCqlVersion("3.0.0")
            .setTargetCassandraVersion("1.2"))
        .withConnectionPoolMonitor(new CountingConnectionPoolMonitor())
        .buildKeyspace(ThriftFamilyFactory.getInstance());

        context.start();
        keyspace = context.getEntity();

        emp_cf = ColumnFamily.newColumnFamily(
            ModelConstants.COLUMN_FAMILY, 
            StringSerializer.get(), 
            StringSerializer.get());
    }

    /**
     * returns the keyspace
     * 
     * @return
     */
    public Keyspace getKeyspace() {
        return keyspace;
    }

    public ColumnFamily<String, String> getEmp_cf() {
        return emp_cf;
    }
}

Can anyone help me with this? Any thoughts on my above Singleton class will be of great help.

Updated Code:-

I am trying to incorporate Bohemian suggestion in my code. Here is the updated code, I got-

public class CassandraAstyanaxConnection {
    private static class ConnectionHolder {
        static final CassandraAstyanaxConnection connection = new CassandraAstyanaxConnection();
    }
    public static CassandraAstyanaxConnection getInstance() {
        return ConnectionHolder.connection;
    }
    /**
     * Creating Cassandra connection using Astyanax client
     *
     */
    private CassandraAstyanaxConnection() {
        context = new AstyanaxContext.Builder()
        .forCluster(ModelConstants.CLUSTER)
        .forKeyspace(ModelConstants.KEYSPACE)
        .withAstyanaxConfiguration(new AstyanaxConfigurationImpl()      
        .setDiscoveryType(NodeDiscoveryType.RING_DESCRIBE)
                )
                .withConnectionPoolConfiguration(new ConnectionPoolConfigurationImpl("MyConnectionPool")
                .setPort(9160)
                .setMaxConnsPerHost(1)
                .setSeeds("127.0.0.1:9160")
                        )
                        .withAstyanaxConfiguration(new AstyanaxConfigurationImpl()      
                        .setCqlVersion("3.0.0")
                        .setTargetCassandraVersion("1.2"))
                        .withConnectionPoolMonitor(new CountingConnectionPoolMonitor())
                        .buildKeyspace(ThriftFamilyFactory.getInstance());
        context.start();
        keyspace = context.getEntity();
        emp_cf = ColumnFamily.newColumnFamily(
                ModelConstants.COLUMN_FAMILY, 
                StringSerializer.get(), 
                StringSerializer.get());
    }
    /**
     * returns the keyspace
     * 
     * @return
     */
    public Keyspace getKeyspace() {
        return keyspace;
    }
    public ColumnFamily<String, String> getEmp_cf() {
        return emp_cf;
    }
}

Can anyone take a look and let me know if this time I got it right or not?

Thanks for the help.

Answer 1

You are implementing the lazy initialization pattern - where the instance is created when first used.

But there is a simple trick that allows you to code a threadsafe implementation that doesn't require synchronization! It is known as the Initialization-on-demand holder idiom, and it looks like this:

public class CassandraAstyanaxConnection {

    private CassandraAstyanaxConnection(){ }        

    private static class Holder {
       private static final CassandraAstyanaxConnection INSTANCE = new CassandraAstyanaxConnection();
    }

    public static CassandraAstyanaxConnection getInstance() {
        return Holder.INSTANCE;
    }
    // rest of class omitted
}

This code initializes the instance on the first calling of getInstance(), and importantly doesn't need synchronization because of the contract of the class loader:

• the class loader loads classes when they are first accessed (in this case Holder's only access is within the getInstance() method)
• when a class is loaded, and before anyone can use it, all static initializers are guaranteed to be executed (that's when Holder's static block fires)
• the class loader has its own synchronization built right in that make the above two points guaranteed to be threadsafe

It's a neat little trick that I use whenever I need lazy initialization. You also get the bonus of a final instance, even though it's created lazily. Also note how clean and simple the code is.

Edit: You should set all constructors as private or protected. Setting and empty private constructor will do the work