ExpiryFolder: Time Based Cache

How does it work?

You have to think about boxes and objects moving from boxes to boxes every tick until they reach the last box where they disappear.Let's say you have a time-out of 30 minutes with a tick every 30 seconds.
The ExpiryFolder will create 60 boxes.
Every objects created at about the same time are in the same box.
Every 30 seconds they move to the box n-1.
If an object is accessed, it moves to the top box.
When it reaches the box 0 and a tick is processed, the object is removed.

One of the big challenge is the synchronization. Here is the code:

• ExpiryFolder.java
• ExpiryListener.java
• ExpiryStrategy.java

Here is an example:

private final static int DURATION = 5000; //ms
private final static int PRECISION = 1000; //ms
private final static String NAME = "TestFolder";

ExpiryStrategy strategy = new ExpiryStrategy(DURATION, PRECISION);
ExpiryFolder folder = new ExpiryFolder(NAME, strategy);
final String KEY = "something";
final String VAL = "else";
folder.put(KEY, VAL);
assertEquals(1, folder.size());
assertEquals(VAL, folder.find(KEY)); // doesn't count as an access
assertEquals(VAL, folder.get(KEY));

Note that this code is already used on production for several years.

Anthony Goubard is a freelance Senior Software Engineer from Amsterdam. He has developed in Java since 1995. He has developed many softwares available at http://www.japplis.com and is the main developer of the Web Services framework XINS. Anthony is a DZone MVB and is not an employee of DZone and has posted 18 posts at DZone. You can read more from them at their website.