Garbage Collection

[Pranav Jaidka]

hi all
im preparing for the SCJP exam and would like to know how to find out when an object/variable is available for garbage collection .
This has been a problem for me because i can never say which line is the legal one for Garbage collection in the mock test that i have been giving .
please let me know
regards
pranav

[Manoj Prithiani]

Hi Pranav,
The object is only available for Garbage Collection when there are no more references to that object. So

[aseem kapoor]

This is one of the beauties of java , u DONT HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT
GARBAGE COLLECTION 'COZ JVM TAKES CARE OF IT . We can not force gabage coll. we can only suggest by giving System.gc().
util there is a reference pointing to a object or the object is pointing to something it cant be garbage collected.

[sanjeev s]

hi all,
how do we know that a reference is not pointing to some location
in the memory.
the simplest way to find out is when it equals null
eg.
Gc gc = new Gc();
gc=null;///after this line the object is not pointing anywhere
and is eligible for garbage collection.
but there are many other cases when the onject becomes eligible
for garbage collection..
can anybody please explian ...
sanjeev