Singleton: How should it be used

Question

Edit: From another question I provided an answer that has links to a lot of questions/answers about singletons: More info about singletons here:

So I have read the thread Singletons: good design or a crutch?
And the argument still rages.

I see Singletons as a Design Pattern (good and bad).

The problem with Singleton is not the Pattern but rather the users (sorry everybody). Everybody and their father thinks they can implement one correctly (and from the many interviews I have done, most people can't). Also because everybody thinks they can implement a correct Singleton they abuse the Pattern and use it in situations that are not appropriate (replacing global variables with Singletons!).

So the main questions that need to be answered are:

• When should you use a Singleton
• How do you implement a Singleton correctly

My hope for this article is that we can collect together in a single place (rather than having to google and search multiple sites) an authoritative source of when (and then how) to use a Singleton correctly. Also appropriate would be a list of Anti-Usages and common bad implementations explaining why they fail to work and for good implementations their weaknesses.

---

So get the ball rolling:
I will hold my hand up and say this is what I use but probably has problems.
I like "Scott Myers" handling of the subject in his books "Effective C++"

Good Situations to use Singletons (not many):

• Logging frameworks
• Thread recycling pools

/*
 * C++ Singleton
 * Limitation: Single Threaded Design
 * See: http://www.aristeia.com/Papers/DDJ_Jul_Aug_2004_revised.pdf
 *      For problems associated with locking in multi threaded applications
 *
 * Limitation:
 * If you use this Singleton (A) within a destructor of another Singleton (B)
 * This Singleton (A) must be fully constructed before the constructor of (B)
 * is called.
 */
class MySingleton
{
    private:
        // Private Constructor
        MySingleton();
        // Stop the compiler generating methods of copy the object
        MySingleton(MySingleton const& copy);            // Not Implemented
        MySingleton& operator=(MySingleton const& copy); // Not Implemented

    public:
        static MySingleton& getInstance()
        {
            // The only instance
            // Guaranteed to be lazy initialized
            // Guaranteed that it will be destroyed correctly
            static MySingleton instance;
            return instance;
        }
};

OK. Lets get some criticism and other implementations together.
:-)

Answer 1

The first example isn't thread safe - if two threads call getInstance at the same time, that static is going to be a PITA. Some form of mutex would help.

Answer 2

I still don't get why a singleton has to be global.

I was going to produce a singleton where I hid a database inside the class as a private constant static variable and make class functions that utilize the database without ever exposing the database to the user.

I don't see why this functionality would be bad.

Answer 3

The real downfall of Singletons is that they break inheritance. You can't derive a new class to give you extended functionality unless you have access to the code where the Singleton is referenced. So, beyond the fact the the Singleton will make your code tightly coupled (fixable by a Strategy Pattern ... aka Dependency Injection) it will also prevent you from closing off sections of the code from revision (shared libraries).

So even the examples of loggers or thread pools are invalid and should be replaced by Strategies.

Answer 4

As others have noted, major downsides to singletons include the inability to extend them, and losing the power to instantiate more than one instance, e.g. for testing purposes.

Some useful aspects of singletons:

1. lazy or upfront instantiation
2. handy for an object which requires setup and/or state

However, you don't have to use a singleton to get these benefits. You can write a normal object that does the work, and then have people access it via a factory (a separate object). The factory can worry about only instantiating one, and reusing it, etc., if need be. Also, if you program to an interface rather than a concrete class, the factory can use strategies, i.e. you can switch in and out various implementations of the interface.

Finally, a factory lends itself to dependency injection technologies like Spring etc.

Answer 5

Because a singleton only allows one instance to be created it effectively controls instance replication. for example you'd not need multiple instances of a lookup - a morse lookup map for example, thus wrapping it in a singleton class is apt. And just because you have a single instance of the class does not mean you are also limited on the number of references to that instance. You can queue calls(to avoid threading issues) to the instance and effect changes necessary. Yes, the general form of a singleton is a globally public one, you can certainly modify the design to create a more access restricted singleton. I haven't tired this before but I sure know it is possible. And to all those who commented saying the singleton pattern is utterly evil you should know this: yes it is evil if you do not use it properly or within it confines of effective functionality and predictable behavior: do not GENERALIZE.

Answer 6

Singletons basically let you have complex global state in languages which otherwise make it difficult or impossible to have complex global variables.

Java in particular uses singletons as a replacement for global variables, since everything must be contained within a class. The closest it comes to global variables are public static variables, which may be used as if they were global with import static

C++ does have global variables, but the order in which constructors of global class variables are invoked is undefined. As such, a singleton lets you defer the creation of a global variable until the first time that variable is needed.

Languages such as Python and Ruby use singletons very little because you can use global variables within a module instead.

So when is it good/bad to use a singleton? Pretty much exactly when it would be good/bad to use a global variable.