Support lazy initialization using atomic variables
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Key: LANG-609
URL: https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/LANG-609
Project: Commons Lang
Issue Type: New Feature
Components: lang.concurrent.*
Reporter: Oliver Heger
Priority: Minor
In the new concurrent package there is already the {{LazyInitializer}} class
implementing the double-check idiom for lazy initialization of instance fields.
Another way to perform initialization lazily would be the usage of atomic
variables. This solution would not need synchronization at all. If there is low
contention (not many threads in parallel), it is more efficient than
synchronized access. Its drawback is that the initialization may be done
multiple times if multiple threads access the initializer almost at the same
time (however, it can be guaranteed that always the same object created by the
initializer is returned).
This is a proposal to add an {{AtomicInitializer}} class as an alternative to
{{LazyInitializer}} that operates on {{AtomicReference}} variables.
In order to make the initializers smoothly exchangable, it would make sense for
them to share a common interface. This interface could also be implemented by
the {{BackgroundInitializer}} class.
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