Eviction policy using soft/weak references

[tcherel]

I do not think that JBossCache uses any weak/soft reference in its implementation, so I wonder how one would implement an "automatic eviction policy" using weak/soft reference so objects are removed from the cache only when not referenced by anybody anymore (or something like that).
Can such mechanism make sense in JBossCache?
Some other caches do provide similar functionalities (like SwamCache).

Thomas

[belaban]

Yes, I think it makes sense. We have this on our roadmap (jboss-head/cache/docs/design/JBossRoadmap.txt, search for soft/weak) for 2.x.

We also have a memory-based eviction policy planned.

[tcherel]

Thanks for the answer.

Do we agree that this is something that must be done within JBossCache itself?
What I mean is that I do not see how someone could implement such mechanism using only the current eviction policy plugin mechanism (or may be I can, but ain't pretty .....).

I did not find the roadmap (I am browsing the CVS tree through the web interface and jboss-head seems empty: http://cvs.sourceforge.net/viewcvs.py/jboss/jboss-head/).

Thomas

[belaban]

http://cvs.sourceforge.net/viewcvs.py/jboss/jboss-cache/docs/design/JBossCacheRoadmap.txt?rev=1.24&view=auto

[tcherel]

Thanks.