Question

The question says it all.
I know the Singleton pattern (with final to its class) is a solution. Are there any other possible ways we can achieve this?
Abstracting a class makes it non-instantiable. Making it final makes it non-inheritable.
How do we combine both?

public final class SingletonObject
{
  private SingletonObject()
  {
    // no code req'd
  }

  /*public static SingletonObject getSingletonObject()
  {
    if (ref == null)
        // it's ok, we can call this constructor
        ref = new SingletonObject();        
    return ref;
  }*/

  public Object clone()
    throws CloneNotSupportedException
  {
    throw new CloneNotSupportedException(); 
    // that'll teach 'em
  }

  private static SingletonObject ref;
}

Code Ref: http://www.javacoffeebreak.com/articles/designpatterns/index.html

Answer 1

Make the constructor private:

public final class Useless {
    private Useless() {}
}

A private constructor is the normal object-oriented solution. However, it would still be possible to instantiate such a class using reflection, like this:

Constructor<Useless> con = Useless.class.getDeclaredConstructor();
con.setAccessible(true); // bypass "private"
Useless object = con.newInstance();

To prevent even reflection from working, throw an exception from the constructor:

public final class Useless {
    private Useless() {
        throw new UnsupportedOperationException();
    }
}