Simple Java name based locks?

// pool of names that are being locked
HashSet<String> pool = new HashSet<String>(); 

lock(name)
    synchronized(pool)
        while(pool.contains(name)) // already being locked
            pool.wait();           // wait for release
        pool.add(name);            // I lock it

unlock(name)
    synchronized(pool)
        pool.remove(name);
        pool.notifyAll();

All those answers I see are way too complicated. Why not simply use:

public void executeInNamedLock(String lockName, Runnable runnable) {
  synchronized(lockName.intern()) {
    runnable.run();
  }
}

The key point is the method intern: it ensures that the String returned is a global unique object, and so it can be used as a vm-instance-wide mutex. All interned Strings are held in a global pool, so that's your static cache you were talking about in your original question. Don't worry about memleaks; those strings will be gc'ed if no other thread references it. Note however, that up to and including Java6 this pool is kept in PermGen space instead of the heap, so you might have to increase it.

There's a problem though if some other code in your vm locks on the same string for completely different reasons, but a) this is very unlikely, and b) you can get around it by introducing namespaces, e.g. executeInNamedLock(this.getClass().getName() + "_" + myLockName);

maybe this is useful for you: jkeylockmanager

Edit:

My initial response was probably a bit short. I am the author and was faced with this problem several times and could not find an existing solution. That's why I made this small library on Google Code.

Can you have a Map<String, java.util.concurrent.Lock>? Each time you require a lock, you basically call map.get(lockName).lock().

Here's an example using Google Guava:

Map<String, Lock> lockMap = new MapMaker().makeComputingMap(new Function<String, Lock>() {
  @Override public Lock apply(String input) {
    return new ReentrantLock();
  }
});

Then lockMap.get("anyOldString") will cause a new lock to be created if required and returned to you. You can then call lock() on that lock. makeComputingMap returns a Map that is thread-safe, so you can just share that with all your threads.