How to deal with Singleton along with Serialization

Question

Consider I have a Singleton class defined as follows.

public class MySingleton implements Serializable{
 private static MySingleton myInstance;

 private MyS         


        

Answer 1

This may be a familiar solution but just in case for reference.

public class ConnectionFactory implements Serializable {

    //Static variable for holding singleton reference object
    private static ConnectionFactory INSTANCE;

    /**
     * Private constructor
     */
    private ConnectionFactory() {

    }

    /**
     * Static method for fetching the instance
     *
     * @return
     */
    public static ConnectionFactory getIntance() {
        //Check whether instance is null or not
        if (INSTANCE == null) {
            //Locking the class object
            synchronized (ConnectionFactory.class) {
                //Doing double check for the instance
                //This is required in case first time two threads simultaneously invoke
                //getInstance().So when another thread get the lock,it should not create the
                //object again as its already created by the previous thread.
                if (INSTANCE == null) {
                    INSTANCE = new ConnectionFactory();
                }
            }
        }
        return INSTANCE;
    }

    /**
     * Special hook provided by serialization where developer can control what object needs to sent.
     * However this method is invoked on the new object instance created by de serialization process.
     *
     * @return
     * @throws ObjectStreamException
     */
    private Object readResolve() throws ObjectStreamException {
        return INSTANCE;
    }

}

Testing the code

public class SerializationTest {

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        ConnectionFactory INSTANCE = ConnectionFactory.getIntance();

        try {
            ObjectOutputStream oos = new ObjectOutputStream(new FileOutputStream("connectFactory.ser"));
            oos.writeObject(INSTANCE);
            oos.close();

            ObjectInputStream osi = new ObjectInputStream(new FileInputStream("connectFactory.ser"));
            ConnectionFactory factory1 = (ConnectionFactory) osi.readObject();
            osi.close();

            ObjectInputStream osi2 = new ObjectInputStream(new FileInputStream("connectFactory.ser"));
            ConnectionFactory factory2 = (ConnectionFactory) osi2.readObject();
            osi2.close();


            System.out.println("Instance reference check->" + factory1.getIntance());
            System.out.println("Instance reference check->" + factory2.getIntance());
            System.out.println("===================================================");
            System.out.println("Object reference check->" + factory1);
            System.out.println("Object reference check->" + factory2);

        } catch (IOException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        } catch (ClassNotFoundException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        }

    }

}

Output

Instance reference check->com.javabrains.ConnectionFactory@6f94fa3e
Instance reference check->com.javabrains.ConnectionFactory@6f94fa3e
===================================================
Object reference check->com.javabrains.ConnectionFactory@6f94fa3e
Object reference check->com.javabrains.ConnectionFactory@6f94fa3e