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Java reference-aware cache

I have memory-expensive objects, that sometimes come with identical content. I would like to cache them as long as they're referenced at least once, and evict from the cache if all referenced are destroyed. Is there a standard solution for that in Java?
Concretely, I would like to achieve something like the following:
ExpObject can be referenced by multiple instances of Entry, and each Entry can be contained in multiple collections. (any other references to ExpObject's don't need to be tracked).
When an Entry is created, we check whether there is already an equal ExpObject and if so, return the cached copy. Otherwise we cache and return the new object. The corresponding reference counter is incremented.
Finally, when all referenced to Entry are gone and it gets collected, the reference counter in ExpObject is decremented, and if it happened to be the last Entry that pointed to this ExpObject, then the ExpObject is evicted from the cache.
However, this solution relies on the finalize() method, that I've been told I shouldn't rely on.
class ExpObject {
private final static Map<ExpObject, ExpObject> cache = new HashMap<>();
private String longString; //stand-in for large content
private int referenced = 0;
public static getExpObject(String content) {
ExpObject newObject = new ExpObject(content);
if (cache.containsKey(newObject)){
ExpObject cachedCopy = cache.get(newObject);
cachedCopy.referenced++;
return cachedCopy;
} else {
newObject.referenced++;
cache.put(newObject, newObject);
return newObject;
}
}
private ExpObject(String content){
this.content = content;
}
public void decrementReference(){
this.referenced--;
if (this.referenced <= 0){
cache.remove(this);
}
}
}
class Entry {
private ExpObject expObject;
public Entry(String content){
expObject = ExpObject.getExpObject(content);
}
#Override
protected void finalize(){
expObject.decrementReference();
}
}

Retrieving records from a hashmap

I have 2 forms , one form for registration and other form for searching records,deleting,etc.
In the registration form i put the registration details in to an object and then store it in a hashmap. In the second form i access the hashmap to delete ,search records according to the id saved(Key).
My problem is when i save a record and access it from the second form (access the hashmap), i get null pointer exception. (I get null pointer exception , even if i have a record saved to the searched key)
Here is what i have done:
Registration form code :
Maps storage=new Maps();
private void btnRegisterActionPerformed(java.awt.event.ActionEvent evt) {
try{
String firstName=txtFirstName.getText();
String initials=txtInitials.getText();
String birthDay=cmbBirthDay.getSelectedItem().toString();
String birthMonth=cmbBirthMonth.getSelectedItem().toString();
String birthYear=txtBirthYear.getText();
String Gender=cmbGender.getSelectedItem().toString();
String address=txtAddress.getText();
String tele=txtTele.getText();
String membershipType="";
String paymentType="";
String memberid=txtMemberId.getText();
if(rbPlatinum.isSelected());{
membershipType=rbPlatinum.getText();
}
if(rbGold.isSelected());
{
membershipType=rbGold.getText();
}
if(rbSilver.isSelected());
{
membershipType=rbSilver.getText();
}
if(rbAnually.isSelected());{
paymentType=rbAnually.getText();
}
if(rbSemi.isSelected());{
paymentType=rbSemi.getText();
}
if(rbMonthly.isSelected());{
paymentType=rbMonthly.getText();
}
Members newMember=new Members(firstName,initials,birthDay,birthMonth,birthYear,Gender,memberid,address,tele,membershipType,paymentType);
storage.setMemberMap(memberid, newMember);
JOptionPane.showMessageDialog(frame,"Successfully Registered");
}catch(Exception e){
JOptionPane.showMessageDialog(frame,"ERROR!");
e.getStackTrace();
}
}
Here is the Maps Class(All the maps are in this class) :
public class Maps {
public Maps(){}
Map<String,Members> memberMap=new HashMap();
//returns the memberMap
public Map<String, Members> getMemberMap() {
return memberMap;
}
//add items to map
public void setMemberMap(String key,Members object) {
memberMap.put(key,object);
}
}
Here is the code which i use in the second form to search a record :-
Maps storage=new Maps();
private void btnSearchMemberActionPerformed(java.awt.event.ActionEvent evt) {
String memberID=txtSearchId.getText();
//get the record and display
txtArea.setText(storage.getMemberMap().get(memberID).toString());
}
What seems to be the problem here ?
Thank you for your time.

You are creating Maps storage=new Maps(); in both the forms. Maps has
Map<String,Members> memberMap=new HashMap();
as non static field. So whenever you create a new Maps() it will create a new memberMap inside.
An alternative would be have memberMap as static (shared variable) and provide static access methods to them
public class Maps {
private static Map<String,Members> memberMap=new HashMap<>();
public static Map<String, Members> getMemberMap() {
return memberMap;
}
public static void setMemberMap(String key,Members object) {
memberMap.put(key,object);
}
}
In this way, you can add items in one form
Maps.setMemberMap(memberid, newMember);
And get the same value from other form
Maps.getMemberMap().get(memberID);
Remember-
private static objects are not garbage collected, unless the holder class gets GCd. So unwanted items should be manually removed from the map, time to time.

Spring #CacheEvict using wildcards

Is there any way of using wildcards in #CacheEvict?
I have an application with multi-tenancy that sometimes needs to evict all the data from the cache of the tenant, but not of all tenants in the system.
Consider the following method:
#Cacheable(value="users", key="T(Security).getTenant() + #user.key")
public List<User> getUsers(User user) {
...
}
So, I would like to do something like:
#CacheEvict(value="users", key="T(Security).getTenant() + *")
public void deleteOrganization(Organization organization) {
...
}
Is there anyway to do it?

Answer is: No.
And it is no easy way to achieve what you want.
Spring Cache annotations must be simple to be easy to implement by cache provider.
Efficient caching must be simple. There is a key and value. If key is found in cache use the value, otherwise compute value and put to cache. Efficient key must have fast and honest equals() and hashcode(). Assume you cached many pairs (key,value) from one tenant. For efficiency different keys should have different hashcode(). And you decide to evict whole tenant. It is no easy to find tenant elements in cache. You have to iterate all cached pairs and discard pairs belonging to the tenant. It is not efficient. It is rather not atomic, so it is complicated and needs some synchronization. Synchronization is not efficient.
Therefore no.
But, if you find a solution tell me, because feature you want is really useful.

As with 99% of every question in the universe, the answer is: it depends. If your cache manager implements something that deals with that, great. But that doesn't seem to be the case.
If you're using SimpleCacheManager, which is a basic in-memory cache manager provided by Spring, you're probably using ConcurrentMapCache that also comes with Spring. Although it's not possible to extend ConcurrentMapCache to deal with wildcards in keys (because the cache store is private and you can't access it), you could just use it as an inspiration for your own implementation.
Below there's a possible implementation (I didn't really test it much other than to check if it's working). This is a plain copy of ConcurrentMapCache with a modification on the evict() method. The difference is that this version of evict() treats the key to see if it's a regex. In that case, it iterates through all the keys in the store and evict the ones that match the regex.
package com.sigraweb.cache;
import java.io.Serializable;
import java.util.concurrent.ConcurrentHashMap;
import java.util.concurrent.ConcurrentMap;
import org.springframework.cache.Cache;
import org.springframework.cache.support.SimpleValueWrapper;
import org.springframework.util.Assert;
public class RegexKeyCache implements Cache {
private static final Object NULL_HOLDER = new NullHolder();
private final String name;
private final ConcurrentMap<Object, Object> store;
private final boolean allowNullValues;
public RegexKeyCache(String name) {
this(name, new ConcurrentHashMap<Object, Object>(256), true);
}
public RegexKeyCache(String name, boolean allowNullValues) {
this(name, new ConcurrentHashMap<Object, Object>(256), allowNullValues);
}
public RegexKeyCache(String name, ConcurrentMap<Object, Object> store, boolean allowNullValues) {
Assert.notNull(name, "Name must not be null");
Assert.notNull(store, "Store must not be null");
this.name = name;
this.store = store;
this.allowNullValues = allowNullValues;
}
#Override
public final String getName() {
return this.name;
}
#Override
public final ConcurrentMap<Object, Object> getNativeCache() {
return this.store;
}
public final boolean isAllowNullValues() {
return this.allowNullValues;
}
#Override
public ValueWrapper get(Object key) {
Object value = this.store.get(key);
return toWrapper(value);
}
#Override
#SuppressWarnings("unchecked")
public <T> T get(Object key, Class<T> type) {
Object value = fromStoreValue(this.store.get(key));
if (value != null && type != null && !type.isInstance(value)) {
throw new IllegalStateException("Cached value is not of required type [" + type.getName() + "]: " + value);
}
return (T) value;
}
#Override
public void put(Object key, Object value) {
this.store.put(key, toStoreValue(value));
}
#Override
public ValueWrapper putIfAbsent(Object key, Object value) {
Object existing = this.store.putIfAbsent(key, value);
return toWrapper(existing);
}
#Override
public void evict(Object key) {
this.store.remove(key);
if (key.toString().startsWith("regex:")) {
String r = key.toString().replace("regex:", "");
for (Object k : this.store.keySet()) {
if (k.toString().matches(r)) {
this.store.remove(k);
}
}
}
}
#Override
public void clear() {
this.store.clear();
}
protected Object fromStoreValue(Object storeValue) {
if (this.allowNullValues && storeValue == NULL_HOLDER) {
return null;
}
return storeValue;
}
protected Object toStoreValue(Object userValue) {
if (this.allowNullValues && userValue == null) {
return NULL_HOLDER;
}
return userValue;
}
private ValueWrapper toWrapper(Object value) {
return (value != null ? new SimpleValueWrapper(fromStoreValue(value)) : null);
}
#SuppressWarnings("serial")
private static class NullHolder implements Serializable {
}
}
I trust that readers know how to initialize the cache manager with a custom cache implementation. There's lots of documentation out there that shows you how to do that. After your project is properly configured, you can use the annotation normally like so:
#CacheEvict(value = { "cacheName" }, key = "'regex:#tenant'+'.*'")
public myMethod(String tenant){
...
}
Again, this is far from being properly tested, but it gives you a way to do what you want. If you're using another cache manager, you could extends its cache implementation similarly.

Below worked for me on Redis Cache.
Suppose you want to delete all Cache entries with key prefix: 'cache-name:object-name:parentKey'. Call method with key value cache-name:object-name:parentKey*.
import org.springframework.data.redis.core.RedisOperations;
...
private final RedisOperations<Object, Object> redisTemplate;
...
public void evict(Object key)
{
redisTemplate.delete(redisTemplate.keys(key));
}
From RedisOperations.java
/**
* Delete given {#code keys}.
*
* #param keys must not be {#literal null}.
* #return The number of keys that were removed.
* #see Redis Documentation: DEL
*/
void delete(Collection<K> keys);
/**
* Find all keys matching the given {#code pattern}.
*
* #param pattern must not be {#literal null}.
* #return
* #see Redis Documentation: KEYS
*/
Set<K> keys(K pattern);

Include the tenant as part of the cache name, by implementing a custom CacheResolver; extending and implementing SimpleCacheResolver.getCacheName
then do evict all keys
#CacheEvict(value = {CacheName.CACHE1, CacheName.CACHE2}, allEntries = true)
But note that if you are using redis as your backing cache, then under the hood spring uses the KEYS command, so the solution will not scale. Once you get few 100K keys in redis, KEYS will take 150ms and the redis server will bottleneck on CPU. Naughty spring.

I had a similar issue as well. I solved it that way.
My Config Class
#Bean
RedisTemplate redisTemplate() {
RedisTemplate template = new RedisTemplate();
template.setConnectionFactory(lettuceConnectionFactory());
template.setKeySerializer(new StringRedisSerializer());
template.setValueSerializer(new RedisSerializerGzip());
return template;
}
My Util Class
public class CacheService {
final RedisTemplate redisTemplate;
public void evictCachesByPrefix(String prefix) {
Set<String> keys = redisTemplate.keys(prefix + "*");
for (String key : keys) {
redisTemplate.delete(key);
}
}
}
Warning: consider KEYS as a command that should only be used in
production environments with extreme care. It may ruin performance
when it is executed against large databases.
https://redis.io/commands/keys

I wanted to remove all stored orders from cache and i complited it this way.
#CacheEvict(value = "List<Order>", allEntries = true)
As i understand this way will be removed all lists stored with this value. So you can create another structure and it also can be a kind of solution.

I solved this by leaving the AOP-Pattern in this special case.
read remains annotation-driven:
#Cacheable(value = "imageCache", keyGenerator = "imageKeyGenerator", unless="#result == null")
public byte[] getImageData(int objectId, int imageType, int width, int height, boolean sizeAbsolute) {
// ...
}
public boolean deleteImage(int objId, int type) {
removeFromCacheByPrefix("imageCache", ImageCacheKeyGenerator.generateKey(objId, type));
int rc = jdbcTemplate.update(SQL_DELETE_IMAGE, new Object[] {objId,type});
return rc > 0;
}
as you can see, the deleteImage(...) has no annotation, but calls removeFromCacheByPrefix(...).
this is a function in the superclass of the repository which looks like this:
protected void removeFromCacheByPrefix(String cacheName, String prefix) {
var cache = this.cacheManager.getCache(cacheName);
Set<String> keys = new HashSet<String>();
cache.forEach(entry -> {
var key = String.valueOf(entry.getKey());
if (key.startsWith(prefix)) {
keys.add(String.valueOf(entry.getKey()));
}
});
cache.removeAll(keys);
}
works fine for me this way!

Hashtable interface, used for setting a key a instance of an object

My add to hashtable method fails, what have i done wrong? Or what have i missunderstood?
test:
#Test
public void testAddKeyValue() {
AdminController cont = new AdminController();
Apartment o1 = new Apartment(1, 4, "Maier B", true);
ArrayList<Expense> exp = new ArrayList<>();
cont.addKeyWithList(o1, exp);
assertTrue(cont.isEmpty()); // ISSUE > the test works if it is true, but it is supposed be False.
}
repo class:
public class Repository extends HashMap<Apartment, ArrayList<Expense>>{
private Map<Apartment,ArrayList<Expense>> dic; // last expense object refers to curret month
Iterator<Map.Entry<Apartment, ArrayList<Expense>>> it;
public void addKeyWithList(Apartment apt, ArrayList<Expense> exp){
dic.put(apt, exp);
}
}
Why is my test not working? Or where in the code have I done something wrong?

Don't extend HashMap as you're doing. Use a HashMap and delegate to it:
public class Repository {
private Map<Apartment, List<Expense>> dic = new HashMap<Apartment, List<Expense>>();
public void addKeyWithList(Apartment apt, ArrayList<Expense> exp){
dic.put(apt, exp);
}
public boolean isEmpty() {
return dic.isEmpty();
}
}
At the moment, Repository is a HashMap, but you don't store anything in it: you store the values in another HashMap contained in Repository.
Also, storing an iterator in a field is a bad idea. iterators can be used only once. Once they have iterated, the can't iterate anymore. It should be a local variable.

Cache in GWT app/widget with HTML5 localStorage

I am trying to incorporate a data cache for one of my GWT widgets.
I have a datasource interface/class which retrieves some data from my backend via RequestBuilder and JSON. Because I display the widget multiple times I only want to retrieve the data once.
So I tried to come with an app cache. The naive approach is to use a HashMap in a singleton object to store the data. However I also want to make use of HTML5's localStorage/sessionStorage if supported.
HTML5 localStorage only supports String values. So I have to convert my object into JSON and store as a string. However somehow I can't come up with a nice clean way of doing this. here is what I have so far.
I define a interface with two functions: fetchStatsList() fetches the list of stats that can be displayed in the widget and fetchStatsData() fetches the actual data.
public interface DataSource {
public void fetchStatsData(Stat stat,FetchStatsDataCallback callback);
public void fetchStatsList(FetchStatsListCallback callback);
}
The Stat class is a simple Javascript Overlay class (JavaScriptObject) with some getters (getName(), etc)
I have a normal non-cachable implementation RequestBuilderDataSource of my DataSource which looks like the following:
public class RequestBuilderDataSource implements DataSource {
#Override
public void fetchStatsList(final FetchStatsListCallback callback) {
// create RequestBuilderRequest, retrieve response and parse JSON
callback.onFetchStatsList(stats);
}
#Override
public void fetchStatsData(List<Stat> stats,final FetchStatsDataCallback callback) {
String url = getStatUrl(stats);
//create RequestBuilderRquest, retrieve response and parse JSON
callback.onFetchStats(dataTable); //dataTable is of type DataTable
}
}
I left out most of the code for the RequestBuilder as it is quite straightforward.
This works out of the box however the list of stats and also the data is retrieved everytime even tough the data is shared among each widget instance.
For supporting caching I add a Cache interface and two Cache implementations (one for HTML5 localStorage and one for HashMap):
public interface Cache {
void put(Object key, Object value);
Object get(Object key);
void remove(Object key);
void clear();
}
I add a new class RequestBuilderCacheDataSource which extends the RequestBuilderDataSource and takes a Cache instance in its constructor.
public class RequestBuilderCacheDataSource extends RequestBuilderDataSource {
private final Cache cache;
publlic RequestBuilderCacheDataSource(final Cache cache) {
this.cache = cache;
}
#Override
public void fetchStatsList(final FetchStatsListCallback callback) {
Object value = cache.get("list");
if (value != null) {
callback.fetchStatsList((List<Stat>)value);
}
else {
super.fetchStatsList(stats,new FetchStatsListCallback() {
#Override
public void onFetchStatsList(List<Stat>stats) {
cache.put("list",stats);
callback.onFetchStatsList(stats);
}
});
super.fetchStatsList(callback);
}
}
#Override
public void fetchStatsData(List<Stat> stats,final FetchStatsDataCallback callback) {
String url = getStatUrl(stats);
Object value = cache.get(url);
if (value != null) {
callback.onFetchStatsData((DataTable)value);
}
else {
super.fetchStatsData(stats,new FetchStatsDataCallback() {
#Override
public void onFetchStatsData(DataTable dataTable) {
cache.put(url,dataTable);
callback.onFetchStatsData(dataTable);
}
});
}
}
}
Basically the new class will lookup the value in the Cache and if it is not found it will call the fetch function in the parent class and intercept the callback to put it into the cache and then call the actual callback.
So in order to support both HTML5 localstorage and normal JS HashMap storage I created two implementations of my Cache interface:
JS HashMap storage:
public class DefaultcacheImpl implements Cache {
private HashMap<Object, Object> map;
public DefaultCacheImpl() {
this.map = new HashMap<Object, Object>();
}
#Override
public void put(Object key, Object value) {
if (key == null) {
throw new NullPointerException("key is null");
}
if (value == null) {
throw new NullPointerException("value is null");
}
map.put(key, value);
}
#Override
public Object get(Object key) {
// Check for null as Cache should not store null values / keys
if (key == null) {
throw new NullPointerException("key is null");
}
return map.get(key);
}
#Override
public void remove(Object key) {
map.remove(key);
}
#Override
public void clear() {
map.clear();
}
}
HTML5 localStorage:
public class LocalStorageImpl implements Cache{
public static enum TYPE {LOCAL,SESSION}
private TYPE type;
private Storage cacheStorage = null;
public LocalStorageImpl(TYPE type) throws Exception {
this.type = type;
if (type == TYPE.LOCAL) {
cacheStorage = Storage.getLocalStorageIfSupported();
}
else {
cacheStorage = Storage.getSessionStorageIfSupported();
}
if (cacheStorage == null) {
throw new Exception("LocalStorage not supported");
}
}
#Override
public void put(Object key, Object value) {
//Convert Object (could be any arbitrary object) into JSON
String jsonData = null;
if (value instanceof List) { // in case it is a list of Stat objects
JSONArray array = new JSONArray();
int index = 0;
for (Object val:(List)value) {
array.set(index,new JSONObject((JavaScriptObject)val));
index = index +1;
}
jsonData = array.toString();
}
else // in case it is a DataTable
{
jsonData = new JSONObject((JavaScriptObject) value).toString();
}
cacheStorage.setItem(key.toString(), jsonData);
}
#Override
public Object get(Object key) {
if (key == null) {
throw new NullPointerException("key is null");
}
String jsonDataString = cacheStorage.getItem(key.toString());
if (jsonDataString == null) {
return null;
}
Object data = null;
Object jsonData = JsonUtils.safeEval(jsonDataString);
if (!key.equals("list"))
data = DataTable.create((JavaScriptObject)data);
else if (jsonData instanceof JsArray){
JsArray<GenomeStat> jsonStats = (JsArray<GenomeStat>)jsonData;
List<GenomeStat> stats = new ArrayList<GenomeStat>();
for (int i = 0;i<jsonStats.length();i++) {
stats.add(jsonStats.get(i));
}
data = (Object)stats;
}
return data;
}
#Override
public void remove(Object key) {
cacheStorage.removeItem(key.toString());
}
#Override
public void clear() {
cacheStorage.clear();
}
public TYPE getType() {
return type;
}
}
The post got a little bit long but hopefully clarifies what I try to reach. It boils down to two questions:
Feedback on the design/architecture of this approach (for example subclassing RequestBilderDataSource for cache function, etc). Can this be improved (this is probably more related to general design than specifically GWT).
With the DefaultCacheImpl it is really easy to store and retrieve any arbitrary objects. How can I achieve the same thing with localStorage where I have to convert and parse JSON? I am using a DataTable which requires to call the DataTable.create(JavaScriptObject jso) function to work. How can I solve this without to many if/else and instance of checks?

My first thoughts: make it two layers of cache, not two different caches. Start with the in-memory map, so no serialization/deserialization is needed for reading a given object out, and so that changing an object in one place changes it in all. Then rely on the local storage to keep data around for the next page load, avoiding the need for pulling data down from the server.
I'd tend to say skip session storage, since that doesn't last long, but it does have its benefits.
For storing/reading data, I'd encourage checking out AutoBeans instead of using JSOs. This way you could support any type of data (that can be stored as an autobean) and could pass in a Class param into the fetcher to specify what kind of data you will read from the server/cache, and decode the json to a bean in the same way. As an added bonus, autobeans are easier to define - no JSNI required. A method could look something like this (note that In DataSource and its impl, the signature is different).
public <T> void fetch(Class<T> type, List<Stat> stats, Callback<T, Throwable> callback);
That said, what is DataTable.create? If it is already a JSO, you can just cast to DataTable as you (probably) normally do when reading from the RequestBuilder data.
I would also encourage not returning a JSON array directly from the server, but wrapping it in an object, as a best practice to protect your users' data from being read by other sites. (Okay, on re-reading the issues, objects aren't great either). Rather than discussing it here, check out JSON security best practices?
So, all of that said, first define the data (not really sure how this data is intended to work, so just making up as I go)
public interface DataTable {
String getTableName();
void setTableName(String tableName);
}
public interface Stat {// not really clear on what this is supposed to offer
String getKey();
void setKey(String key);
String getValue();
String setValue(String value);
}
public interface TableCollection {
List<DataTable> getTables();
void setTables(List<DataTable> tables);
int getRemaining();//useful for not sending all if you have too much?
}
For autobeans, we define a factory that can create any of our data when given a Class instance and some data. Each of these methods can be used as a sort of constructor to create a new instance on the client, and the factory can be passed to AutoBeanCodex to decode data.
interface DataABF extends AutoBeanFactory {
AutoBean<DataTable> dataTable();
AutoBean<Stat> stat();
AutoBean<TableCollection> tableCollection();
}
Delegate all work of String<=>Object to AutoBeanCodex, but you probably want some simple wrapper around it to make it easy to call from both the html5 cache and from the RequestBuilder results. Quick example here:
public class AutoBeanSerializer {
private final AutoBeanFactory factory;
public AutoBeanSerializer(AutoBeanFactory factory) {
this.factory = factory;
}
public String <T> encodeData(T data) {
//first, get the autobean mapped to the data
//probably throw something if we can't find it
AutoBean<T> autoBean = AutoBeanUtils.getAutoBean(data);
//then, encode it
//no factory or type needed here since the AutoBean has those details
return AutoBeanCodex.encode(autoBean);
}
public <T> T decodeData(Class<T> dataType, String json) {
AutoBean<T> bean = AutoBeanCodex.decode(factory, dataType, json);
//unwrap the bean, and return the actual data
return bean.as();
}
}