Singleton Pattern
Singletons are classes which can be instantiated once, and can be accessed globally. This single instance can be shared throughout our application, which makes Singletons great for managing global state in an application.
When to Use
- Use this when you need exactly one instance of a class shared across the entire application
- This is helpful for managing global state, configuration, or shared resources
Instructions
- Ensure only one instance can be created by checking for an existing instance in the constructor
- Use on the exported instance to prevent accidental modifications
- In JavaScript, prefer simple object literals or modules over class-based singletons when possible
- In React, prefer state management tools (Redux, Context) over Singletons for global state
- Be aware that Singletons can make testing more difficult due to shared mutable state
Details
First, let's take a look at what a singleton can look like using an ES2015 class. For this example, we're going to build a
class that has:
- a method that returns the value of the instance
- a method that returns the current value of the variable
- an method that increments the value of by one
- a method that decrements the value of by one
js
let counter = 0;
class Counter {
getInstance() {
return this;
}
getCount() {
return counter;
}
increment() {
return ++counter;
}
decrement() {
return --counter;
}
}
However, this class doesn't meet the criteria for a Singleton! A Singleton should only be able to get
instantiated once. Currently, we can create multiple instances of the
class.
js
let counter = 0;
class Counter {
getInstance() {
return this;
}
getCount() {
return counter;
}
increment() {
return ++counter;
}
decrement() {
return --counter;
}
}
const counter1 = new Counter();
const counter2 = new Counter();
console.log(counter1.getInstance() === counter2.getInstance()); // false
By calling the
method twice, we just set
and
equal to different instances. The values returned by the
method on
and
effectively returned references to different instances: they aren't strictly equal!
Let's make sure that only
one instance of the
class can be created.
One way to make sure that only one instance can be created, is by creating a variable called
. In the constructor of
, we can set
equal to a reference to the instance when a new instance is created. We can prevent new instantiations by checking if the
variable already had a value. If that's the case, an instance already exists. This shouldn't happen: an error should get thrown to let the user know.
js
let instance;
let counter = 0;
class Counter {
constructor() {
if (instance) {
throw new Error("You can only create one instance!");
}
instance = this;
}
getInstance() {
return this;
}
getCount() {
return counter;
}
increment() {
return ++counter;
}
decrement() {
return --counter;
}
}
const counter1 = new Counter();
const counter2 = new Counter();
// Error: You can only create one instance!
Perfect! We aren't able to create multiple instances anymore.
Let's export the
instance from the
file. But before doing so, we should
freeze the instance as well. The
method makes sure that consuming code cannot modify the Singleton. Properties on the frozen instance cannot be added or modified, which reduces the risk of accidentally overwriting the values on the Singleton.
js
let instance;
let counter = 0;
class Counter {
constructor() {
if (instance) {
throw new Error("You can only create one instance!");
}
instance = this;
}
getInstance() {
return this;
}
getCount() {
return counter;
}
increment() {
return ++counter;
}
decrement() {
return --counter;
}
}
const singletonCounter = Object.freeze(new Counter());
export default singletonCounter;
Consider an application that implements the
example with the following files:
- : contains the class, and exports a instance as its default export
- : loads the and modules
- : imports , and adds 's method as an event listener to the red button, and logs the current value of by invoking the method
- : imports , and adds 's method as an event listener to the blue button, and logs the current value of by invoking the method
Both
and
import the
same instance from
. This instance is imported as
in both files.
When we invoke the
method in either
or
, the value of the
property on the
instance updates in both files. It doesn't matter whether we click on the red or blue button: the same value is shared among all instances. This is why the counter keeps incrementing by one, even though we're invoking the method in different files.
Tradeoffs
Restricting the instantiation to just one instance could potentially save a lot of memory space. Instead of having to set up memory for a new instance each time, we only have to set up memory for that one instance, which is referenced throughout the application. However, Singletons are actually considered an anti-pattern, and can (or.. should) be avoided in JavaScript.
In many programming languages, such as Java or C++, it's not possible to directly create objects the way we can in JavaScript. In those object-oriented programming languages, we need to create a class, which creates an object. That created object has the value of the instance of the class, just like the value of
in the JavaScript example.
However, the class implementation shown in the examples above is actually overkill. Since we can directly create objects in JavaScript, we can simply use a regular object to achieve the exact same result. Let's cover some of the disadvantages of using Singletons!
Using a regular object
Let's use the same example as we saw previously. However this time, the
is simply an object containing:
- a property
- an method that increments the value of by one
- a method that decrements the value of by one
Since objects are passed by reference, both
and
are importing a reference to the same
object. Modifying the value of
in either of these files will modify the value on the
, which is visible in both files.
Testing
Testing code that relies on a Singleton can get tricky. Since we can't create new instances each time, all tests rely on the modification to the global instance of the previous test. The order of the tests matter in this case, and one small modification can lead to an entire test suite failing. After testing, we need to reset the entire instance in order to reset the modifications made by the tests.
Dependency hiding
When importing another module,
in this case, it may not be obvious that module is importing a Singleton. In other files, such as
in this case, we may be importing that module and invoke its methods. This way, we accidentally modify the values in the Singleton. This can lead to unexpected behavior, since multiple instances of the Singleton can be shared throughout the application, which would all get modified as well.
Global behavior
A Singleton instance should be able to get referenced throughout the entire app. Global variables essentially show the same behavior: since global variables are available on the global scope, we can access those variables throughout the application.
Having global variables is generally considered as a bad design decision. Global scope pollution can end up in accidentally overwriting the value of a global variable, which can lead to a lot of unexpected behavior.
In ES2015, creating global variables is fairly uncommon. The new
and
keyword prevent developers from accidentally polluting the global scope, by keeping variables declared with these two keywords block-scoped. The new
system in JavaScript makes creating globally accessible values easier without polluting the global scope, by being able to
values from a module, and
those values in other files.
However, the common usecase for a Singleton is to have some sort of global state throughout your application. Having multiple parts of your codebase rely on the same mutable object can lead to unexpected behavior.
Usually, certain parts of the codebase modify the values within global state, whereas others consume that data. The order of execution here is important: we don't want to accidentally consume data first, when there is no data to consume (yet)! Understanding the data flow when using a global state can get very tricky as your application grows, and dozens of components rely on each other.
State management in React
In React, we often rely on a global state through state management tools such as Redux or React Context instead of using Singletons. Although their global state behavior might seem similar to that of a Singleton, these tools provide a read-only state rather than the mutable state of the Singleton. When using Redux, only pure function reducers can update the state, after a component has sent an action through a dispatcher.
Although the downsides to having a global state don't magically disappear by using these tools, we can at least make sure that the global state is mutated the way we intend it, since components cannot update the state directly.
Source
References