How many Objects are elligible for Gabbage Collection at Line 17?

[Xolile Nxuseka]

1. class A{
2.
3. A a1;
4. A a2;
5.
6. public void finalize(){
7. System.out.println("-");
8. }
9.
10. public static void main(String args[]){
11. A s1=new A();
12. s1.a1=new A();
13. s1.a2=s1;
14. s1.a1.a2=new A();
15. s1.a1.a2.a2=new A();
16. s1.a1.a2.a2.a1=s1.a1;
17. s1.a2.a1.a2=null;
18. System.gc();
19. }
20.
21. }

[Abimaran Kugathasan]

Welcome to JavaRanch! Please => QuoteYourSources, => ShowSomeEffort, and => UseCodeTags when you post a code snaps, it will be more readable.

[Hrishikesh Yeshwant Alshi]

Just for my own sanity:

class A{ 

		A a1; 
		A a2; 

		public void finalize(){ 
			System.out.println("-"); 
		} 

		public static void main(String args[]){ 
			A s1=new A(); 
			s1.a1=new A(); 
			s1.a2=s1; 
			s1.a1.a2=new A(); 
			s1.a1.a2.a2=new A(); 
			s1.a1.a2.a2.a1=s1.a1; 
			s1.a2.a1.a2=null; 
			System.gc(); 
		} 
}

[Hrishikesh Yeshwant Alshi]

In my opinion, two objects can be GCed.

[Rikesh Desai]

yep. 2.

[Abimaran Kugathasan]

Yes, answer is 2, but fir these kind of questions, draw diagrams with pencil. You can count it then.

[Mukunda s Dhakate]

why 2???

[Matthew Raw]

I agree with Abimaran. You can solve these types of questions easily if you draw a diagram of what is happening. I draw usually the given objects in circles and then I draw a arrow pointing to that circle. The arrows thus begins with the reference variable name and ends with the circle which represents the object. Then I delete and move the arrows as the code follows and at the desired line, I count the circles to which there are no arrows pointing to. This is the number of objects eligible for GC. I hope I wrote it understandably :-)