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Why String Class Is Made Immutable or Final in Java

1. The document discusses reasons why the String class is immutable in Java, including benefits for security, threading, and performance. It also covers how the String pool works and how concatenation is implemented. 2. Methods for checking if one string is a rotation of another are presented, along with examples of weak, soft, and phantom references in Java and how they affect garbage collection. 3. The differences between weak references and soft references are explained, with weak references allowing objects to be collected when no strong references remain and soft references delaying collection until memory is needed.

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Shubham Mittal
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64 views

Why String Class Is Made Immutable or Final in Java

1. The document discusses reasons why the String class is immutable in Java, including benefits for security, threading, and performance. It also covers how the String pool works and how concatenation is implemented. 2. Methods for checking if one string is a rotation of another are presented, along with examples of weak, soft, and phantom references in Java and how they affect garbage collection. 3. The differences between weak references and soft references are explained, with weak references allowing objects to be collected when no strong references remain and soft references delaying collection until memory is needed.

Uploaded by

Shubham Mittal
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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1.

Why String Class is made Immutable or Final in Java - 5 Reasons

1) String Pool
2) Security
3) Use of String in Class Loading Mechanism
4) Multithreading Benefits
5) Optimization and Performance
2. The "+" operator is overloaded for String in Java and usually use to concatenate two String.
Java doesn't support operator overloading but this is the special feature only available for
String class. also, "+" operator is internally implemented using either StringBuilder or
StringBuffer object and by using their append() method.
3. String class maintains a private pool of all String literals created in the JVM. Earlier this pool
was part of PermGen space but from JDK 8 the PermGen space has been removed and
String pool becomes a part of Java heap space.
4. Here are the steps to check if a given String s2 is the rotation of String s1 without
using String concatenation.

a. Check if the length of both Strings is same or not, If not then they are not
rotation. If yes, then proceed to next step.
b. Check if both Strings are equal, if yes then s2 is a rotation of s1. If not,
then move to next step.
c. Take the first string's first character and find the index in the second string.
If not found, then it's not the rotation, but if found, proceed to next step.
d. Subtract the length of the rotated string with the index found to find the
final position.
e. Check if the first character of the rotated String is same as the character at
the final position of input String and
the input.substring(finalPos) is equal to
the rotated.substring(0, index)

5. 1) Can we make array volatile in Java?


This is one of the tricky Java multi-threading questions you will see in senior Java
developer Interview. Yes, you can make an array volatile in Java but only the reference
which is pointing to an array, not the whole array. What I mean, if one thread changes
the reference variable to points to another array, that will provide a volatile guarantee,
but if multiple threads are changing individual array elements they won't be having
happens before guarantee provided by the volatile modifier.

2) Can volatile make a non-atomic operation to atomic?


This another good question I love to ask on volatile, mostly as a follow-up of the previous
question. This question is also not easy to answer because volatile is not about
atomicity, but there are cases where you can use a volatile variable to make the
operation atomic.
One example I have seen is having a long field in your class. If you know that a long field
is accessed by more than one thread e.g. a counter, a price field or anything, you better
make it volatile. Why? because reading to a long variable is not atomic in Java and done
in two steps, If one thread is writing or updating long value, it's possible for another
thread to see half value (fist 32-bit). While reading/writing a volatile long or double (64
bit) is atomic.

3) What are practical uses of volatile modifier?


One of the practical use of the volatile variable is to make reading double and long
atomic. Both double and long are 64-bit wide and they are read in two parts, first 32-bit
first time and next 32-bit second time, which is non-atomic but volatile double and long
read is atomic in Java. Another use of the volatile variable is to provide a memory
barrier, just like it is used in Disrupter framework. Basically, Java Memory model inserts a
write barrier after you write to a volatile variable and a read barrier before you read it.
Which means, if you write to volatile field then it's guaranteed that any thread accessing
that variable will see the value you wrote and anything you did before doing that right
into the thread is guaranteed to have happened and any updated data values will also
be visible to all threads, because the memory barrier flushed all other writes to the
cache.

4) What guarantee volatile variable provides? (answer)


volatile variables provide the guarantee about ordering and visibility e.g. volatile
assignment cannot be re-ordered with other statements but in the absence of any
synchronization instruction compiler, JVM or JIT are free to reorder statements for better
performance. volatile also provides the happens-before guarantee which ensures
changes made in one thread is visible to others. In some cases volatile also provide
atomicity e.g. reading 64-bit data types like long and double are not atomic but read of
volatile double or long is atomic.
6. byte a = 127; byte b = 127;
7. b = a + b; // error : cannot convert from int to byte
8. b += a; // ok
9. How do WeakHashMap works? (answer)
WeakHashMap works like a normal HashMap but uses WeakReference for keys, which
means if the key object doesn't have any reference then both key/value mapping will
become eligible for garbage collection.

WeakReference vs SoftReference in Java


For those who don't know there are four kind of reference in Java :

10. Strong reference


11. Weak Reference
12. Soft Reference
13. Phantom Reference
Strong Reference is most simple as we use it in our day to day programming life e.g. in
the code, String s = "abc" , reference variable s has strong reference to String
object "abc". Any object which has Strong reference attached to it is not eligible for
garbage collection. Obviously these are objects which is needed by Java program.
Weak Reference are represented using java.lang.ref.WeakReference class and
you can create Weak Reference by using following code :

Counter counter = new Counter(); // strong reference - line 1


WeakReference<Counter> weakCounter = new WeakReference<Counter>(counter);
//weak reference
counter = null; // now Counter object is eligible for garbage collection

Now as soon as you make strong reference counter = null, counter object created
on line 1 becomes eligible for garbage collection; because it doesn't have any more
Strong reference and Weak reference by reference variable weakCounter can not
prevent Counter object from being garbage collected. On the other hand, had this
been Soft Reference, Counter object is not garbage collected until JVM absolutely
needs memory. Soft reference in Java is represented
using java.lang.ref.SoftReference class. You can use following code to create
a SoftReference in Java

Counter prime = new Counter(); // prime holds a strong reference - line 2


SoftReference<Counter> soft = new SoftReference<Counter>(prime) ; //soft
reference variable has SoftReference to Counter Object created at line 2

prime = null; // now Counter object is eligible for garbage collection but
only be collected when JVM absolutely needs memory
After making strong reference null, Counter object created on line 2 only has one
soft reference which can not prevent it from being garbage collected but it can delay
collection, which is eager in case of WeakReference. Due to this major difference
between SoftReference and WeakReference, SoftReference are more suitable
for caches and WeakReference are more suitable for storing meta data. One
convenient example of WeakReference is WeakHashMap, which is another
implementation of Map interface like HashMap or TreeMap but with one unique
feature. WeakHashMap wraps keys as WeakReference which means once strong
reference to actual object removed, WeakReference present internally
on WeakHashMap doesn't prevent them from being Garbage collected.

Phantom reference is third kind of reference type available


in java.lang.ref package. Phantom reference is represented
by java.lang.ref.PhantomReference class. Object which only has Phantom
reference pointing them can be collected whenever Garbage Collector likes it. Similar
to WeakReference and SoftReference you can create PhantomReference by
using following code :
DigitalCounter digit = new DigitalCounter(); // digit reference variable has
strong reference - line 3
PhantomReference<DigitalCounter> phantom = new
PhantomReference<DigitalCounter>(digit); // phantom reference to object
created at line 3

digit = null;

14. As soon as you remove Strong reference, DigitalCounter object created at


line 3 can be garbage collected at any time as it only has one
more PhantomReference pointing towards it, which can not prevent it from
GC'd.

Summary on Garbage collection in Java

1) Java Heap is divided into three generation for the sake of garbage collection. These are a
young generation, tenured or old generation, and Perm area.

2) New objects are created by young generation and subsequently moved to the old
generation.

3) String pool is created in PermGen area of Heap, garbage collection can occur in perm space
but depends upon JVM to JVM. By the way from JDK 1.7 update, String pool is moved to heap
area where objects are created.

4) Minor garbage collection is used to move an object from Eden space to survivor 1 and
survivor 2 space and major collection is used to move an object from young to tenured
generation.

5) Whenever Major garbage collection occurs application threads stop during that period
which will reduce application’s performance and throughput.

6) There are few performance improvements has been applied in garbage collection in java 6
and we usually use JRE 1.6.20 for running our application.

7) JVM command line options –Xmx and -Xms is used to setup starting and max size for Java
Heap. The ideal ratio of this parameter is either 1:1 or 1:1.5 based on my experience, for
example, you can have either both –Xmx and –Xms as 1GB or –Xms 1.2 GB and 1.8 GB.

8) There is no manual way of doing garbage collection in Java, but you can use various
reference classes e.g. WeakReference or SoftReference to assist garbage collector.

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