What are common mistakes developers make with soft, weak, and phantom references?

Common mistakes developers make with soft, weak, and phantom references include improper usage, misunderstanding their lifecycle, not releasing references correctly, and failing to recognize the differences between them, leading to memory leaks or unintended behavior.
soft references, weak references, phantom references, Java memory management, common mistakes, memory leaks
// Example of common mistakes with soft and weak references in Java import java.lang.ref.SoftReference; import java.lang.ref.WeakReference; import java.util.HashMap; public class ReferenceExample { static HashMap> weakReferenceMap = new HashMap<>(); static HashMap> softReferenceMap = new HashMap<>(); public static void main(String[] args) { Object heavyObject = new Object(); softReferenceMap.put("softRef", new SoftReference<>(heavyObject)); weakReferenceMap.put("weakRef", new WeakReference<>(heavyObject)); // Mistake: Checking the state of the reference immediately after putting the object System.out.println("Soft Reference: " + softReferenceMap.get("softRef").get()); // May return null if JVM cleaned up System.out.println("Weak Reference: " + weakReferenceMap.get("weakRef").get()); // Likely to be null due to garbage collection // Mistake: Not handling the potential for null values Object retrievedSoft = softReferenceMap.get("softRef").get(); if (retrievedSoft != null) { System.out.println("Using soft reference object."); } else { System.out.println("Soft reference has been cleared."); } Object retrievedWeak = weakReferenceMap.get("weakRef").get(); if (retrievedWeak != null) { System.out.println("Using weak reference object."); } else { System.out.println("Weak reference has been cleared."); } } }

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