com.bbn.bue.common.symbols.Symbol Maven / Gradle / Ivy

Go to download
Show more of this group Show more artifacts with this name
Show all versions of common-core-open Show documentation
There is a newer version: 4.1.2
package com.bbn.bue.common.symbols;

import com.bbn.bue.common.HasStableHashCode;

import com.google.common.base.Function;

import java.io.ObjectStreamException;
import java.io.Serializable;
import java.lang.ref.WeakReference;
import java.util.HashMap;
import java.util.Map;

import static com.google.common.base.Preconditions.checkNotNull;


/**
 * Symbol (adapted from Serif) is represents an interned String. Symbol-ized Strings can be used to
 * reduce memory requirements for frequently repeated Strings (e.g. parse node names) and to speed
 * up comparisons.
 *
 * It is guaranteed that for any Strings a and b, if
 *  * Symbol aSym = Symbol.from(a);
 * Symbol bSym = Symbol.from(b);
 * 
 * it is true that (aSym == bSym) == a.equals(b).
 *
 * Prefer using {@link #equalTo(Symbol)} to {@link #equals(Object)} when doing
 * direct comparisons between symbols for type-safety.
 *
 * The hashcode is not stable across program runs.
 *
 * @author rgabbard
 */
public final class Symbol implements Serializable, HasStableHashCode {

  private static Map> symbols =
      new HashMap>();
  private final String string;

  private Symbol(String string) {
    this.string = checkNotNull(string);
  }

  /**
   * Creates a Symbol representing this string.
   *
   * @param string Must be non-null.
   */
  public static synchronized Symbol from(final String string) {
    final WeakReference ref = symbols.get(checkNotNull(string));

    if (ref != null) {
      final Symbol sym = ref.get();
      if (sym != null) {
        return sym;
      }
    }

    final Symbol sym = new Symbol(string);
    symbols.put(string, new WeakReference(sym));
    return sym;
  }

  /**
   * Returns the string this Symbol represents. Will never be {@code null}.
   */
  public String asString() {
    return string;
  }

  /**
   * A type-safe version of {@link #equals(Object)}.  We found that accidental comparisons of
   * symbols to non-symbols was a frequent source of error, so prefer using this to {@link
   * #equals(Object)} when the types should be known.
   */
  public boolean equalTo(Symbol other) {
    return equals(other);
  }

  /**
   * (non-Javadoc) Returns the String this Symbol was created from.
   */
  @Override
  public String toString() {
    return asString();
  }

  @Override
  public int stableHashCode() {
    return string.hashCode();
  }

  public static final Function FromString = new Function() {
    @Override
    public Symbol apply(String input) {
      return Symbol.from(input);
    }
  };

  // serialization support
  private static final long serialVersionUID = 1L;

  // when a Symbol is deserialized, this method is called and
  // the return value *replaces* this object. We use this to
  // ensure that the constraint that there is always at most
  // one Symbol representing a given String remains true
  // even after deserialization.
  private Object readResolve() throws ObjectStreamException {
    return Symbol.from(this.string);
  }

}