how spring singleton scope for DAO class works internally - spring

Question

I went through some blogs and spring docs about the Spring singleton scope along with almost all spring singleton and DAO related question in stackoverflow.
I still do not have clear understanding of how the same object is injected to all the class which depend on it. I have learnt that the DAO needs to be stateless.
If the following DAO (sample dao having instance variable mainly to clear confusion) class is defined with default singleton scope and the same object is injected everytime, then there might be scenarios where department is null and therefore it won't set anything for department value instead use whatever the previous object value was.
public class UserDAO{
int userId;
Spring userDepartment;
// getter setter methods for userId and userDepartment
public boolean addUserToUserDetailsTable(int uId,
String name, String address, String department){
// set userId
userId = uId;
if(department!=null)
userDepartment = department;
// write code to add user to user table
// TO DO
// save user department data
addUserToUserDepartmentTable(userId, userDepartment);
}
public void addUserToUserDepartmentTable(int uId,
String department){
/* Code to save department data */
}
}
So if instead of using DI, if I manually call the DAO using new operator this problem won't be there.
new UserDAO().addUserToUserDetailsTable(id, "abc", null);
the above confusion generates following questions
how is spring creating and injecting singelton beans, is it really one and only one object which gets injected to all calling classes. If this is true then how the previous object values from above DAO class is reset.
won't the instance variable hold their values here userId, userDepartment if the same object is called from multiple class ?? Does stateless means the class cannot have instance variable.
does spring internally uses new object() to inject the beans.
or it creates an object of DAO class and makes multiple clones of the object, which i think is not possible because the DAO class is not implementing clonnable.
Please help me clearing the above confusion.

Answer 1

how is spring creating and injecting singelton beans, is it really one and only one object which gets injected to all calling classes.
Yes, it's injecting a single instance, always the same, of the DAO class. That's the definition of singleton: a single instance is created.
If this is true then how the previous object values from above DAO class is reset.
It's not reset.
won't the instance variable hold their values here userId, userDepartment if the same object is called from multiple class ??
Yes, the unique instance will hold the userId and department, since these are fields of the instance. You might run into problems trying to read and write these values, though, since they constitute shared mutable state, which is accessed concurrently from multiple threads without any synchronization.
Does stateless means the class cannot have instance variable.
In the strict sense, yes. But a DAO doesn't need to be stateless. It needs to be thread-safe, since the same instance is accessed from multiple threads concurrently. The best way to achieve that is to avoid having any state (so no instance variable). But this is hard to achieve for a DAO, which normally needs to have access to an injected DataSource, of JdbcTemplate, or EntityManager, or whatever. Since, however, these instance variables are normally injected by Spring during startup, before the DAO starts being used by multiple threads, and never written to during the lifetime of the application, that is thread-safe. Your code, however, has state, and the state is modified during the lifetime of the application, which makes it not safe.
does spring internally uses new object() to inject the beans.
It depends how the DAO bean is declared. It can be declared using JavaConfig, using a #Bean method calling the constructor. Most of the time, reflection is used to call the constructor. So there is no new MyDAO() in the code anywhere, but the constructor is still called (only once since it's a singleton), because that's the only way to create an instance of an object from scratch.
or it creates an object of DAO class and makes multiple clones of the object, which i think is not possible because the DAO class is not implementing clonnable.
That wouldn't be a singleton if it did that.

Answer 2

Singleton scope beans in Spring means one instance per container and the bean has to be stateless or else you will run into issues in cases of multi-threaded scenarios.
how is spring creating and injecting singelton beans, is it really
one and only one object which gets injected to all calling classes.
Spring creates once instance at startup and passes the same reference to all the calling objects which has requested for the same via Dependency injection.
If this is true then how the previous object values from above DAO
class is reset.
If your bean is stateless there would be no value held by the object, as most of the variable would be method local and not tied to the Instance object (DAO class in this case). However in your case since you have member variable tied to a class
all the classes which acquire this DAO bean would see the same value set to the member variable and this data will be be corrupted and is not recommended.
won't the instance variable hold their values here userId,
userDepartment if the same object is called from multiple class ??
Does stateless means the class cannot have instance variable.
Yes this the exact definition of bean being stateless. As explained above.
does spring internally uses new object() to inject the beans. or it
creates an object of DAO class and makes multiple clones of the
object, which i think is not possible because the DAO class is not
implementing clonnable.
If you have not defined the bean scope, by default spring would assume it is Singleton. The understanding of singleton scope and singleton pattern is different. Spring mimics singleton pattern by providing only instance but this does not stop you from creating new instance (using say new operator).

Answer 3

Your Singleton is not stateless. Userid and Department define the 'state'.
Spring creates one instance using reflection 'newInstance' or a producer function in your configuration.
This one instance is then provided to all objects requesting the DAO.
Your considerations are all valid but not resolved by spring: Since your DAO has a state, it is not properly implemented and results are undefined.
Answer to question 1: It is not reset. Spring won't handle state for you!
Basically (Q2) you are on a dangerous path if you use instance variables in stateless beans. The instance vars need to be stateless themselves, like other DAO singletons.
UPDATE: I want to elaborate on this. The singleton can have a state, but the state is shared between all users of the DAO. This does not strictly require your DAO to be thread safe: If you do not use threads, there is no concurrent use - but the state of a singleton is a shared state: All users of the singleton have the same. If you have two functions like so:
#Component
public class A {
#Autowired
DaoObject singleton;
#Autowired
B another;
public void aFunctionA() {
singleton.userId = "Foo";
System.out.printf("UserId: %s%n", singleton.userId); // prints Foo
another.aFunctionB();
System.out.printf("UserId: %s%n", singleton.userId); // prints Serviceuser
}
}
#Service
public class B {
#Autowired
DaoObject singleton;
public void aFunctionB() {
singleton.userId = "Serviceuser";
}
}
The state of the singleton singleton is shared between all users of the class. If one class changes the state, all other users have to cope with that.
If you are using threads, this adds extra complexity on stateful singletons, as your modifications to state must be thread safe.
It is common practice to keep a singleton immutable after initialization.
On your 4th question: Spring will not clone a Singleton, as described above.