Hi Paul,
On 11/09/2016 12:27 AM, Paul Sandoz wrote:
Hi,
Please review the addition of an api note to ClassValue.computeValue.
There is some history behind this issue. Another issue was logged [1] related
to Groovy using ClassValue and there being a memory leak with classes/loaders
not being GC’ed, but it turned out the problem was with Groovy's explicit
retention of computed values in a global set. So i closed that issue down.
But, there is an edge case where it’s possible to induce out of memory errors
with ClassValue, specifically if the computed value holds onto the
corresponding ClassValue instance. I think this is an edge case and does not
warrant a change to the ClassValue implementation to support weak refs to
computed values which is likely to complicate an already intricate
implementation and perturb its performance characteristics.
Simply referencing the associated computed value through a WeakReference
would break the ClassValue API. It is expected that the associated value
is strongly reachable through the Class instance with which it is
associated. Not being reachable strongly, would cause weakly reachable
associated value to be GCed prematurely. To fix this problem, one would
need to implement ClassValue using Ephemeron(s) but Java does not
(yet;-) have them.
So i have opted for an api note. I don’t want to normatively specify this, nor
do i want to allude to various implementation details. (One can argue a similar
note could be written for ThreadLocal.)
Thanks,
Paul.
[1] https://bugs.openjdk.java.net/browse/JDK-8136353
--- a/src/java.base/share/classes/java/lang/ClassValue.java Tue Nov 08
12:36:21 2016 -0800
+++ b/src/java.base/share/classes/java/lang/ClassValue.java Tue Nov 08
15:25:04 2016 -0800
@@ -62,6 +62,13 @@
* If this method throws an exception, the corresponding call to {@code
get}
* will terminate abnormally with that exception, and no class value will
be recorded.
*
+ * @apiNote
+ * Care should be taken to ensure that this {@code ClassValue} is not
+ * <a href="../ref/package-summary.html#reachability"><em>strongly
reachable</em></a>
+ * from the computed value. Doing so may prevent classes and their loaders
+ * from being garbage collected which in turn may induce out of memory
+ * errors.
+ *
* @param type the type whose class value must be computed
* @return the newly computed value associated with this {@code
ClassValue}, for the given class or interface
* @see #get
It is not always the case that when ClassValue instance is strongly
reachable from the associated computed value, unloading of classes and
class loaders is prevented. So using "may" is correct here. Would it
make sense to describe the situations where ClassValue instance can
still be strongly reachable from the associated value and not prevent
classes and their loaders from being GCed?
Regards, Peter
