Design Pattern Anatomy - Singleton Pattern

Daniel Breen — Sat, 07 Mar 2026 23:46:06 +0000

Introduction

The Singleton pattern restricts the instantiation of a class to a single
instance and provides a global point of access to it. It is useful when exactly
one object is needed to coordinate actions across the system.

Example

The example below demonstrates a simple implementation of the singleton pattern
to create a counter.

class Counter {
  private static instance: Counter;
  private _count: number;

  private constructor() {
    this._count = 0; // Initialize the count to 0 to prevent errors when incrementing
  }

  public static getInstance(): Counter {
    if (!Counter.instance) {
      Counter.instance = new Counter();
    }
    return Counter.instance;
  }

  public increment(): void {
    this._count++;
  }

  public getCount(): number {
    return this._count;
  }
}

Dissection

Private Static Variable

A private static variable that holds the single instance of the class.

private static instance: Counter;

Private Constructor

A private constructor to prevent direct instantiation of the class from outside.

private constructor() {
    this._count = 0; // Initialize the count to 0 to prevent errors when incrementing
}

Public Static Access Method

A public static method (often named getInstance()) that returns the single
instance of the class, creating it if it doesn't already exist.

public static getInstance(): Counter {
    if (!Counter.instance) {
        Counter.instance = new Counter();
    }
    return Counter.instance;
}

Usage

const counter1 = Counter.getInstance();
counter1.increment();
counter1.increment();

const counter2 = Counter.getInstance();
counter2.increment();
counter2.increment();

console.log(counter1.getCount()); // Output: 4
console.log(counter2.getCount()); // Output: 4

Notice how both counter1 and counter2 reference the same instance, so
incrementing one affects the other. Both counter1.getCount() and
counter2.getCount() return the same value.

DEV Community: Daniel Breen