延迟加载技术及其在iBATIS中的实现

O/R映射框架的延迟加载技术实现大体上有这么4种(参看Martin Fowler的意见):
( http://www.martinfowler.com/eaaCatalog/lazyLoad.html)

There are four main varieties of lazy load. Lazy Initialization uses a special marker value (usually null) to indicate a field isn't loaded. Every access to the field checks the field for the marker value and if unloaded, loads it. Virtual Proxy is an object with the same interface as the real object. The first time one of its methods are called it loads the real the object and then delegates. Value Holder is an object with a getValue method. Clients call getValue to get the real object, the first call triggers the load. A ghost is the real object without any data. The first time you call a method the ghost loads the full data into its fields.

通过阅读源代码,发现iBATIS中的延迟加载是用上述方式中的虚拟代理实现的.

在动态代理的实现上, iBATIS有Java动态代理和CGLIB两种实现方案,iBATIS把用CGLIB实现的方案称为Enhanced的方案,可见CGLIB的效率会比java的动态代理效率要高.
在iBATIS首先判断是否定义了延迟加载,如果定义了,则利用Lazy的Loader来提取数据(返回一个Proxy).如没有执行对这个的任何操作,或者只是不再使用(finalize),则不做处理,否者就加载真正的对象.

可以通过阅读类
com.ibatis.sqlmap.engine.mapping.result.loader.LazyResultLoader
的源码获取更多的细节.