The EvictionPolicyConfig implementation should maintain getter and setter methods for whatever configuration properties the policy supports (e.g. for LRUConfiguration among others there is a int getMaxNodes() and a setMaxNodes(int) ). When the "EvictionConfig" section of an XML configuration is parsed, these properties will be set by reflection.

The BaseEvictionAlgorithm class maintains a processing structure. It will process the ADD, REMOVE, and VISIT events queued by the region first. It also maintains an collection of items that were not properly evicted during the last go around because of held locks. That list is pruned. Finally, the EvictionQueue itself is pruned for entries that should be evicted based upon the configured eviction rules for the region.

The BaseSortedEvictionAlgorithm class will maintain a boolean through the algorithm processing that will determine if any new nodes were added or visited. This allows the Algorithm to determine whether to resort the eviction queue items (in first to evict order) or to skip the potentially expensive sorting if there have been no changes to the cache in this region.

The SortedEvictionQueue interface defines the contract used by the BaseSortedEvictionAlgorithm abstract class that is used to resort the underlying queue. Again, the queue sorting should be sorted in first to evict order. The first entry in the list should evict before the last entry in the queue. The last entry in the queue should be the last entry that will require eviction.