Sign Up

Sign Up to our social questions and Answers Engine to ask questions, answer people’s questions, and connect with other people.

Have an account? Sign In

Have an account? Sign In Now

Sign In

Login to our social questions & Answers Engine to ask questions answer people’s questions & connect with other people.

Sign Up Here

Forgot Password?

Don't have account, Sign Up Here

Forgot Password

Lost your password? Please enter your email address. You will receive a link and will create a new password via email.

Have an account? Sign In Now

You must login to ask a question.

Forgot Password?

Need An Account, Sign Up Here

Please briefly explain why you feel this question should be reported.

Please briefly explain why you feel this answer should be reported.

Please briefly explain why you feel this user should be reported.

Sign InSign Up

The Archive Base

The Archive Base Logo The Archive Base Logo

The Archive Base Navigation

  • SEARCH
  • Home
  • About Us
  • Blog
  • Contact Us
Search
Ask A Question

Mobile menu

Close
Ask a Question
  • Home
  • Add group
  • Groups page
  • Feed
  • User Profile
  • Communities
  • Questions
    • New Questions
    • Trending Questions
    • Must read Questions
    • Hot Questions
  • Polls
  • Tags
  • Badges
  • Buy Points
  • Users
  • Help
  • Buy Theme
  • SEARCH
Home/ Questions/Q 9075851
In Process

The Archive Base Latest Questions

Editorial Team
  • 0
Editorial Team
Asked: June 16, 20262026-06-16T18:57:58+00:00 2026-06-16T18:57:58+00:00

I am currently developing an application that requires random access to many (60k-100k) relatively

  • 0

I am currently developing an application that requires random access to many (60k-100k) relatively large files.
Since opening and closing streams is a rather costly operation, I’d prefer to keep the FileChannels for the largest files open until they are no longer needed.

The problem is that since this kind of behaviour is not covered by Java 7’s try-with statement, I’m required to close all the FileChannels manually.
But that is becoming increasingly too complicated since the same files could be accessed concurrently throughout the software.

I have implemented a ChannelPool class that can keep track of opened FileChannel instances for each registered Path. The ChannelPool can then be issued to close those channels whose Path is only weakly referenced by the pool itself in certain intervals.
I would prefer an event-listener approach, but I’d also rather not have to listen to the GC.

The FileChannelPool from Apache Commons doesn’t address my problem, because channels still need to be closed manually.

Is there a more elegant solution to this problem? And if not, how can my implementation be improved?

import java.io.IOException;
import java.lang.ref.WeakReference;
import java.nio.channels.FileChannel;
import java.nio.file.Path;
import java.nio.file.StandardOpenOption;
import java.util.Map;
import java.util.Timer;
import java.util.TimerTask;
import java.util.concurrent.ConcurrentHashMap;

public class ChannelPool {

    private static final ChannelPool defaultInstance = new ChannelPool();

    private final ConcurrentHashMap<String, ChannelRef> channels;
    private final Timer timer;

    private ChannelPool(){
        channels = new ConcurrentHashMap<>();
        timer = new Timer();
    }

    public static ChannelPool getDefault(){
        return defaultInstance;
    }

    public void initCleanUp(){
        // wait 2 seconds then repeat clean-up every 10 seconds.
        timer.schedule(new CleanUpTask(this), 2000, 10000);
    }

    public void shutDown(){
        // must be called manually.
        timer.cancel();
        closeAll();
    }

    public FileChannel getChannel(Path path){
        ChannelRef cref = channels.get(path.toString());
        System.out.println("getChannel called " + channels.size());

        if (cref == null){
            cref = ChannelRef.newInstance(path);
            if (cref == null){
                // failed to open channel
                return null;
            }
            ChannelRef oldRef = channels.putIfAbsent(path.toString(), cref);
            if (oldRef != null){
                try{
                    // close new channel and let GC dispose of it
                    cref.channel().close();
                    System.out.println("redundant channel closed");
                }
                catch (IOException ex) {}
                cref = oldRef;
            }
        }
        return cref.channel();
    }

    private void remove(String str) {   
        ChannelRef ref = channels.remove(str);
        if (ref != null){
            try {
                ref.channel().close();
                System.out.println("old channel closed");
            }
            catch (IOException ex) {}
        }
    }

    private void closeAll() {
        for (Map.Entry<String, ChannelRef> e : channels.entrySet()){
            remove(e.getKey());
        }
    }

    private void maintain() {
        // close channels for derefenced paths
        for (Map.Entry<String, ChannelRef> e : channels.entrySet()){
            ChannelRef ref = e.getValue();
            if (ref != null){
                Path p = ref.pathRef().get();
                if (p == null){
                    // gc'd
                    remove(e.getKey());
                }
            }
        }
    }

    private static class ChannelRef{

        private FileChannel channel;
        private WeakReference<Path> ref;

        private ChannelRef(FileChannel channel, WeakReference<Path> ref) {
            this.channel = channel;
            this.ref = ref;
        }

        private static ChannelRef newInstance(Path path) {
            FileChannel fc;
            try {
                fc = FileChannel.open(path, StandardOpenOption.READ);
            }
            catch (IOException ex) {
                return null;
            }
            return new ChannelRef(fc, new WeakReference<>(path));

        }

        private FileChannel channel() {
            return channel;
        }

        private WeakReference<Path> pathRef() {
            return ref;
        }
    }

    private static class CleanUpTask extends TimerTask {

        private ChannelPool pool;

        private CleanUpTask(ChannelPool pool){
            super();
            this.pool = pool;
        }

        @Override
        public void run() {
            pool.maintain();
            pool.printState();
        }
    }

    private void printState(){
        System.out.println("Clean up performed. " + channels.size() + " channels remain. -- " + System.currentTimeMillis());
        for (Map.Entry<String, ChannelRef> e : channels.entrySet()){
            ChannelRef cref = e.getValue();
            String out = "open: " + cref.channel().isOpen() + " - " + cref.channel().toString();
            System.out.println(out);
        }
    }

}

EDIT:
Thanks to fge‘s answer I have now exactly what I needed. Thanks!

import com.google.common.cache.CacheBuilder;
import com.google.common.cache.CacheLoader;
import com.google.common.cache.LoadingCache;
import com.google.common.cache.RemovalListener;
import com.google.common.cache.RemovalNotification;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.nio.channels.FileChannel;
import java.nio.file.Path;
import java.nio.file.StandardOpenOption;
import java.util.concurrent.ExecutionException;

public class Channels {

    private static final LoadingCache<Path, FileChannel> channelCache = 
            CacheBuilder.newBuilder()
            .weakKeys()
            .removalListener(
                new RemovalListener<Path, FileChannel>(){
                    @Override
                    public void onRemoval(RemovalNotification<Path, FileChannel> removal) {
                        FileChannel fc = removal.getValue();
                        try {
                            fc.close();
                        }
                        catch (IOException ex) {}
                    }
                }
            )
            .build(
                new CacheLoader<Path, FileChannel>() {
                    @Override
                    public FileChannel load(Path path) throws IOException {
                        return FileChannel.open(path, StandardOpenOption.READ);
                    }
                }
            );

    public static FileChannel get(Path path){
        try {
            return channelCache.get(path);
        }
        catch (ExecutionException ex){}
        return null;
    }
}
  • 1 1 Answer
  • 0 Views
  • 0 Followers
  • 0
Share
  • Facebook
  • Report

Leave an answer
Cancel reply

You must login to add an answer.

Forgot Password?

Need An Account, Sign Up Here

1 Answer

  • Voted
  • Oldest
  • Recent
  • Random
  1. Editorial Team
    Editorial Team
    2026-06-16T18:57:59+00:00Added an answer on June 16, 2026 at 6:57 pm

    Have a look here:

    http://code.google.com/p/guava-libraries/wiki/CachesExplained

    You can use a LoadingCache with a removal listener which would close the channel for you when it expires, and you can specify expiry after access or write.

    • 0
    • Reply
    • Share
      Share
      • Share on Facebook
      • Share on Twitter
      • Share on LinkedIn
      • Share on WhatsApp
      • Report

Sidebar

Related Questions

I am currently developing a ruby application that has a large number of different
I'm developing an application that requires me to display many short strings of text
I'm developing an application that requires testing email. I'm currently using wampserver, but it
Hi I'm currently developing an app that requires a very large download (100-200MB) on
I am currently developing an application that makes use of an SQL database. In
I'm currently developing an application that will be run on local network in B2B
I am currently developing a web application that receives data from an on-site database.
I'm currently developing an Android application that fetches images using http requests. It would
I'm currently developing an android application that uses sockets to connect to a local
I am currently developing a Java web application that exposes a web service interface.

Explore

  • Home
  • Add group
  • Groups page
  • Communities
  • Questions
    • New Questions
    • Trending Questions
    • Must read Questions
    • Hot Questions
  • Polls
  • Tags
  • Badges
  • Users
  • Help
  • SEARCH

Footer

© 2021 The Archive Base. All Rights Reserved
With Love by The Archive Base

Insert/edit link

Enter the destination URL

Or link to existing content

    No search term specified. Showing recent items. Search or use up and down arrow keys to select an item.