> anything else that happens to work with an interned copy of that string is now contending with your lock

Isn't that the point?

People use it to create symbolic locks in situations where they don't want to use any more formal link of linkage provided by the JVM. In your case you need some way to get a handle to that concurrent hash map, so some kind of formal JVM linkage. Sometimes that's hard.

Not saying how it's how I'd chose to design an application, but I presume people doing this have their own good reasons.

I think there's a subtle difference: you want to create mutual exclusion around specific operations using that string. However, it's at least conceivable that something else uses the interned instance of that string, and thereby creates contention.

Now, if your string is sufficiently unique, the chances are relatively low, as long as you don't leak a reference to it (an object, or explicit Lock only has one purpose, so that's less likely).

Still, it's basically mysterious action at a distance. Whereas using the ConcurrentHashMap, it's very explicit action at a distance. Granted, it does require explicit JVM linkage, which is a cost.

Yeah--mucking about with .intern for no good reason, or locking on strings in general, shouldn't pass a code review, this reeks of sticking one's fingers in all sorts of places they don't belong. ConcurrentHashMap.computeIfAbsent (and computing a value that is _not_ subject to mysterious external forces) is so much better.

>ConcurrentHashMap.computeIfAbsent

It's leak prone as it'd hold the references forever. It's a cheap and easy way to do it but far from ideal. I'd not recommend it.

This seems a strange criticism--of course entries in a map don't disappear for no reason at all. Consider using an atomic cache if you are going to stick so many keys into the map that it becomes an issue. Or else bucket the keys into a known set, if you can tolerate the occasional collision.

String.intern does remove references (it used not to and it was considered a major issue). Imagine parsing documents and keeping the words - it works well as long as the input is not malicious. Otherwise words would pile up with no one cleaning them, give it enough time/input to slow the application due to memory pressure, crashing with OOM.