GC

[Anonymous]

Can anybody confirm whether the following stament is true on GC. I think it is true.
- The programmer can signify through a reference that an object is no longer needed - True/False

[maha anna]

Yes. This statement is true.
regds
maha anna

[Jane Rozen]

Originally posted by Dadi:
Can anybody confirm whether the following stament is true on GC. I think it is true.
- The programmer can signify through a reference that an object is no longer needed - True/False

Sure.
If you want to tell the system that you done with the object, all you have to do is to remove all references to it like this:
myObj=null;

[Rolf Weasel]

I think the answer is false since an object can have more than one reference. Hence, one reference cannot always determine the fate of an object.

[maha anna]

The programmer can signify through a reference that an object is no longer needed - True/False
If you just see the vanilla meaning of this statement it is true. A programmer can give a green signal to the GC to reclaim the memory by setting the object's reference to null. If you purposly keep one more reference to the object and then set one ref to null means, you are cheating yourself. You are responsible for that. Sometimes without the programmer's knowledge there may be another ref kept to the object. For example, when you pass a ref to a method (which is written by someone else and you don't have the source code) you CAN NOT be sure, after that method invocation, whether there is one more ref added to this input ref during the method execution. The wish of setting an object's reference to null is as though saying that 'as far as I am concerned I do not need this object anymore' and you are signifying the GC to collect the memory of that object. Checking if there is one more ref to this object and claiming the memory back (if at all GC tries to collect this object) is upto to the GC mechanism.
regds
maha anna

[This message has been edited by maha anna (edited March 10, 2000).]

[Rolf Weasel]

The programmer can signify through a reference that an object is no longer needed - True/False
The statement implies that given a reference, u can signify that the object is no longer needed. That's why i feel it should be false. I guess it's dubious English syntax.