正如大家所说，共享资源——特别是不能处理并发访问的资源。

我所见过的一个具体例子是Lucene搜索索引写入器。

I use it for an object encapsulating command-line parameters when dealing with pluggable modules. The main program doesn't know what the command-line parameters are for modules that get loaded (and doesn't always even know what modules are being loaded). e.g., main loads A, which doesn't need any parameters itself (so why it should take an extra pointer / reference / whatever, I'm not sure - looks like pollution), then loads modules X, Y, and Z. Two of these, say X and Z, need (or accept) parameters, so they call back to the command-line singleton to tell it what parameters to accept, and the at runtime they call back to find out if the user actually has specified any of them.

在很多方面，处理CGI参数的单例方式与你每次查询只使用一个进程类似(其他mod_*方法不这样做，所以这很糟糕——因此这个参数说你不应该在mod_cgi世界中使用单例，以防你移植到mod_perl或其他世界)。

我认为单例的使用与数据库中的多对一关系是一样的。如果代码中有许多不同的部分需要处理对象的单个实例，那么使用单例就很有意义了。

使用单例的方法之一是覆盖一个实例，其中必须有一个“代理”控制对资源的访问。单例在日志记录器中很好，因为它们代理访问，比如说，一个文件，这个文件只能被写入。对于像日志这样的东西，它们提供了一种方法来抽象出对日志文件之类的东西的写操作——你可以将缓存机制包装到你的单例中，等等……

也可以考虑这样一种情况，你有一个应用程序，有许多窗口/线程等，但它需要一个单一的通信点。我曾经使用它来控制我希望应用程序启动的作业。单例程序负责将作业序列化，并将它们的状态显示给程序中其他感兴趣的部分。在这种情况下，你可以把单例对象看作是在应用程序中运行的“服务器”类……HTH

Singleton类的主要目的是限制创建的实例数量，从而确保对资源的访问控制。

使用单例类不会产生内存空间浪费，因为它限制了实例的创建。因为对象的创建只会发生一次，而不是每次新请求时都创建。

单例类在内部使用互斥量，因此使其线程安全。这就是为什么多线程和数据库应用程序主要使用Java中的Singleton模式进行缓存、日志记录、线程池、配置设置等等

一个实例可以在Test::Builder中找到，这个类支持几乎所有现代Perl测试模块。Builder单例存储并代理测试流程的状态和历史记录(历史测试结果，计算运行的测试次数)以及测试输出流向等内容。这些都是协调由不同作者编写的多个测试模块以在单个测试脚本中一起工作所必需的。

The history of Test::Builder's singleton is educational. Calling new() always gives you the same object. First, all the data was stored as class variables with nothing in the object itself. This worked until I wanted to test Test::Builder with itself. Then I needed two Test::Builder objects, one setup as a dummy, to capture and test its behavior and output, and one to be the real test object. At that point Test::Builder was refactored into a real object. The singleton object was stored as class data, and new() would always return it. create() was added to make a fresh object and enable testing.

Currently, users are wanting to change some behaviors of Test::Builder in their own module, but leave others alone, while the test history remains in common across all testing modules. What's happening now is the monolithic Test::Builder object is being broken down into smaller pieces (history, output, format...) with a Test::Builder instance collecting them together. Now Test::Builder no longer has to be a singleton. Its components, like history, can be. This pushes the inflexible necessity of a singleton down a level. It gives more flexibility to the user to mix-and-match pieces. The smaller singleton objects can now just store data, with their containing objects deciding how to use it. It even allows a non-Test::Builder class to play along by using the Test::Builder history and output singletons.

似乎在数据的协调和行为的灵活性之间存在着一种推拉关系，这种关系可以通过在共享数据周围使用尽可能少的行为来缓解，以确保数据的完整性。