One common idiom with reference queues is to e.g. subclass WeakReference
to attach information that's needed to clean up things, and then to poll a ReferenceQueue
to get cleanup tasks.
ReferenceQueue<Foo> fooQueue = new ReferenceQueue<Foo>();
class ReferenceWithCleanup extends WeakReference<Foo> {
Bar bar;
ReferenceWithCleanup(Foo foo, Bar bar) {
super(foo, fooQueue);
this.bar = bar;
}
public void cleanUp() {
bar.cleanUp();
}
}
public Thread cleanupThread = new Thread() {
public void run() {
while(true) {
ReferenceWithCleanup ref = (ReferenceWithCleanup)fooQueue.remove();
ref.cleanUp();
}
}
}
public void doStuff() {
cleanupThread.start();
Foo foo = new Foo();
Bar bar = new Bar();
ReferenceWithCleanup ref = new ReferenceWithCleanup(foo, bar);
... // From now on, once you release all non-weak references to foo,
// then at some indeterminate point in the future, bar.cleanUp() will
// be run. You can force it by calling ref.enqueue().
}
For example, the internals of Guava's CacheBuilder
implementation when weakKeys
are selected uses this approach.