Immutable objects are those, whose state can not be changed once created.
Immutable object offers several benefits in multi-threaded programming and it’s a great choice to achieve thread safety in Java code.
For e.g. java.lang.String, once created can not be modified e.g. trim, uppercase, lowercase. All modification in String result in new object,
Here are few rules, which helps to make a class immutable in Java :
1. State of immutable object can not be modified after construction, any modification should result in new immutable object.
2. All fields of Immutable class should be final.
3. Object must be properly constructed i.e. object reference must not leak during construction process.
4. Object should be final in order to restrict sub-class for altering immutability of parent class.
you can still create immutable object by violating few rules, like String has its hashcode in non final field, but its always guaranteed to be same. No matter how many times you calculate it, because it’s calculated from final fields, which is guaranteed to be same. This required a deep knowledge of Java memory model, and can create subtle race conditions if not addressed properly.
This Java class is immutable, because its state can not be changed once created. You can see that all of it’s fields are final. This is one of the most simple way of creating immutable class in Java, where all fields of class also remains immutable like String in above case.
public final class Contacts {
private final String name;
private final String mobile;
public Contacts(String name, String mobile) {
this.name = name;
this.mobile = mobile;
}
public String getName(){
return name;
}
public String getMobile(){
return mobile;
}
}
Here is another example of making a class immutable in Java, which includes mutable member variable.
public final class ImmutableReminder{
private final Date remindingDate;
public ImmutableReminder (Date remindingDate) {
if(remindingDate.getTime() < System.currentTimeMillis()){
throw new IllegalArgumentException("Can not set reminder” +
“ for past time: " + remindingDate);
}
this.remindingDate = new Date(remindingDate.getTime());
}
public Date getRemindingDate() {
return (Date) remindingDate.clone();
}
}
In above example of creating immutable class, Date is a mutable object. If getRemindingDate() returns actual Date object than despite remindingDate being final variable, internals of Date can be modified by client code. By returning clone() or copy of remindingDate, we avoid that danger and preserves immutability of class.
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