Singleton described to a simpleton

[Donald R. Cossitt]

I cannot find reference to 'singleton' in any manual I have currently (at least directly) and Google search gives C#, ASP, C++ and Delphi only (maybe they're the same?).
Somebody point to an URL, book, give two bits...?
TIA

[Ernest Friedman-Hill]

"Singleton" is a more or less language-independent design pattern, documented all over the place on the Web. Here's perhaps the definitive discussion from the seminal Portland Pattern Repository.
Here's a reasonable Java interpretation.

[John Smith]

Originally posted by Donald R. Cossitt:
I cannot find reference to 'singleton' in any manual I have currently (at least directly) and Google search gives C#, ASP, C++ and Delphi only (maybe they're the same?).
Somebody point to an URL, book, give two bits...?
TIA

A Google query for "java singleton" returns 68,100 hits.
JavaWorld (very good source) along has 111 articles about singletons.

[Vinod Venkatasubramanian]

The book on Design Patterns by the Gang of 4 discusses this pattern.
One nice real-world example in Windows is the "Run" dialog box (Start->Run)... how many ever times you click on 'Run', the same dialog box is returned, ie, the handle to the same window.

[Donald R. Cossitt]

Thanks Ernst, Eugene, Vinod. This was most helpful. Buy yourself a beer on me. :roll:

[Ilja Preuss]

We also have an entry for Singleton in our FAQ: http://test.javaranch.com/wiki/view?SingletonPattern