Double checked locking pattern: Broken or not?

Question

Why is the pattern considered broken? It looks fine to me? Any ideas?

public static Singleton getInst() {
    if (instace == null) createInst();
    return instace;
}

private static synchronized createInst() {
     if (instace == null) {
         instace = new Singleton(); 
     }
}

Answer 1

It looks okay at first glance, but this technique has many subtle problems and should usually be avoided. For example, consider the following sequence of events:

1. Thread A notices that the value is not initialized, so it obtains the lock and begins to initialize the value.
2. The code generated by the compiler is allowed to update the shared variable to point to a partially constructed object before A has finished performing the initialization.
3. Thread B notices that the shared variable has been initialized (or so it appears), and returns its value. Because thread B believes the value is already initialized, it does not acquire the lock. If B uses the object before all of the initialization done by A is seen by B the program will likely crash.

You could avoid this by using the "volatile" keyword to handle your singleton instances correctly