Pooling Resources With The Object Pool Pattern
I find the Object Pool pattern extremely useful. For starters, I can easily count how many instances of a class instantiated or replace a specific instance without worrying about which objects might still hold a reference to the old version.
Here’s a simple constructor example with a built-in registration component. New instances register to the class’s static pool attribute. This pool, keyed by the object’s id, will ensure we only have one copy with that id. If we new up Class with an id that already exists, we effectively replace the current instance–there’s no need to hold a reference (I do it in the example below to demonstrate the replacement).
Some pool management methods may be statics, like getInstance. Others may be on the instances using prototype inheritance, like the destroy method below.
var P = P || {};
P.Class = (function () {
var counter = -1; //private variable in case an id is not supplied
return function Class(options) {
var prop;
for (prop in options) { //simple mixin
if (options.hasOwnProperty(prop)) {
this[prop] = options[prop];
}
}
if (!this.constructor.pool) {
this.constructor.pool = {};
}
if (!this.id) {
this.id = counter += 1;
}
this.constructor.pool[this.id] = this;
};
}());
P.Class.getInstance = function (id) {
return this.pool && this.pool[id];
};
P.Class.prototype.destroy = function () {
delete this.constructor.pool[this.id];
};
var p1 = new P.Class();
console.log("an instance of Class:", P.Class.getInstance(0));
P.Class.getInstance(0).change = true;
console.log("alter the object in pool:", P.Class.getInstance(0).change);
var p2 = new P.Class({id: "0"});
console.log("replace an instance in pool:", P.Class.getInstance(0) === p2);
P.Class.getInstance(0).destroy();
console.log("destroy instance of Class:", typeof P.Class.getInstance(0) === "undefined");