When nothing has a reference to them, then they are eligible for the gc. The trick is to recognize what can hold a reference to them.
You must also remember that more than one variable can hold a reference to the SAME object. Nulling one of them out does not free the object for the gc unless they are ALL nulled out or replaced with something else.
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Cindy Glass
Sun Certified Programmer for the Java� 2 Platform
Co-author of
Java 2 Certification Passport