de.intarsys.tools.component

Interface IReferenceCounter

public interface IReferenceCounter

An object that is aware of its referents.

The object implements a reference counting mechanism that should behave like this:

• the object should keep a counter that increments when acquired and decrements when released
• upon creation the object should be acquired by the constructor or factory method.
• if the client code is not aware if a new object is created (or taken from a registry for example), the object published by the factory method should always be acquired.
• the object should not accept method calls before it is acquired
• when the counter is zero after release, the object should no longer accept any calls

If combined with the INotificationSupport, the object MAY trigger an AttributeChangedEvent upon acquire/release. In this case the ATTR_REFERENCECOUNT should be used to indicate the attribute.

If combined with the INotificationSupport, the object MAY trigger a DestroyedEvent when the reference count reaches 0.

Field Summary

Fields

Modifier and Type	Field and Description
static Attribute	ATTR_REFERENCECOUNT

Method Summary

Modifier and Type	Method and Description
void	acquire()
int	getReferenceCount()
void	release()

Field Detail

ATTR_REFERENCECOUNT

static final Attribute ATTR_REFERENCECOUNT

Method Detail

acquire

void acquire()

getReferenceCount

int getReferenceCount()

release

void release()