Garbage collection -- thread object

[kanchan chaudhary]

Assume that th is an instance holding a thread object. th.start() causes the thread to start running and eventually complete its execution. The object reference by th is not accessable any more and is garbage collected when the garbage collecter runs.

True
False
Thanks
kanchan

[Dave Vick]

Kanchan,
I believe the answer is false. The object is still referenced by the variable th. Even though it is done running you can always start it again. If, on the other hand, you say th = null; now there are no more variables that hold a reference to that object and it can be garbage collected.
hope that helps, if I'm wrong someone please correct me!!
Dave

[Angela Lamb]

Dave, threads can't be restarted after their run method has completed execution. I believe the answer to Kanchan's question will still be false, though, since th will hold a reference to the thread regardless of whether it has already been run. It will continue to hold that reference until it has been set to null. Also note that if you set th to null while the thread is still running, it can't be garbage collected until it has stopped running.

[kanchan chaudhary]

Thanks
kanchan

[Ravindra Mohan]

Hi Rancher's
I agree with Anjella.
Infact, you can refernce the members of "th" even after
the <code>run() </code> has complited execution, but let me
re-state here thread cant be restarted once its run() method
has finished execution.
Ravindra Mohan

[Umesh Joglekar]

You can never be certain that anything WILL eventually be garbage collected. All you can say about anything is whether it becomes eligible to be garbage collected.

[Dave Vick]

Originally posted by Angela Ann:
Dave, threads can't be restarted after their run method has completed execution.

Sorry my mistake. Was thinking of a Runnable object.
thanks for catching it.
Dave