Lynn Monson

Java brought garbage collection to mainstream programming. Never before have commercial software developers been so aware of the need and benefit of using a collector. Notwithstanding, the benefits of garbage collection in Java are far from being completely realized. As larger and more complex applications are built in Java, it's becoming apparent that some very flexible memory management schemes are both needed and possible. In this article I explore a cache you can build on JDK 1.2 beta 3 that uses WeakReferences to cooperate with Java's garbage collector. The cache uses WeakReferences to take advantage of available system memory without clogging it with unfreeable objects. When memory is reclaimed, the cache will free those objects that are not in use, resulting in a better-performing application. Objects can be cached in memory but don't have to trigger memory ... (more)