What are the advantages and disadvantages of the JVM’s …

1 year ago
Ava Mitchell
2 minutes

Advantages of the JVM’s parent delegation mechanism:

  1. Improved the security of class loading: The parent delegation mechanism ensures that classes are loaded from top to bottom, starting with the top-level class and then gradually loading downward. This helps prevent malicious classes from replacing or tampering with existing classes.
  2. Efficiency in class loading has been enhanced by utilizing the parent delegation mechanism to prevent the redundant loading of existing classes. Once a class has been loaded, it is stored in memory, allowing for quicker retrieval the next time the class is needed and avoiding the time and space costs associated with duplicate loading.
  3. The implementation of class loaders has been simplified: the parent delegation mechanism clearly divides the responsibilities of different class loaders, allowing each class loader to focus only on its own loading scope without concern for the loading processes of other class loaders, thus simplifying the implementation and maintenance of class loaders.

Disadvantages of the JVM’s parent delegation mechanism:

  1. The flexibility of class loaders is restricted: The parent delegation mechanism requires class loaders to load classes in a top-down order, limiting their flexibility. Sometimes, we may need a custom class loader to load some special classes, but due to the restrictions of the parent delegation mechanism, this may not be achievable.
  2. It is not possible to customize modifications to classes: the delegation mechanism of loading will prioritize loading classes from the system itself, making it often impossible to modify or enhance a particular class. This is because when the class is loaded, it will be loaded directly from within the system without considering our modified version of the class.
  3. Possible causes of class loader memory leaks: Under the delegation model, each class loader has a parent class loader. When the parent class loader is unable to load a class, the class will be loaded by the child class loader. This can result in the parent class loader being unable to be reclaimed, potentially leading to class loader memory leaks.
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