Hi Sugantha:
Take a look carefully in your code, in line 4 you're creating a new object and refering it with
gc2, on line 5 you're creating a second object and refering it with
gc3, on lines 6 and 7 you are crossing references, I mean you just are doing that both
gc inside your two objects refer to each other, but in line 8 you are creating a new object, this object has its own
gc, but it refers to NULL and you are refering it with
gc2, finally you are refering this last object which its
gc referes to NULL with
gc3.
So both reference variables (
gc2 and
gc3) points to the same object (the one which its
gc refers to NULL), the other two objects have no reference alive, you can think "but
object1.gc refers to object2 and
object2.gc refers to object1, so they still having references alive", the answer is no, since you have no an alive reference variable from your
thread which refer to object1 there is no way to access object2 throught
object1.gc and viceversa, so both objects have lost their connection to the world, indeed they are elegibles for garbage collector.
Do you get it? I hope this help you to understand it.
Also I want to encourage you to take a look around, there are so many cases about garbage collector in JavaRanch, some of them are quite similar to your doubt.
Regards,
