when will it be Garbage collected?

Hello Ranchers,

void start()
{
A a = new A();
B b = new B();
a.s(b);
b = null; //line1
a = null; //line2
System.out.println("Start Complete"); //line3
}

When is the B object, created in line 14, eligible for Garbage collection.
a) After line 1
b) After line 2
c) After line 3(When method ends)
d) There is no way to be absolutely certain.

What will be correct answer of it...
I think "c" is most suitable...
Plz give suggestions.

From what I know, an object can be garbage collected by the system when there are no references to it, so when you set b = null that should be it.

What is more important it will not be garbage collected, it will become available for garbage collection. You can never know when one object will be collected.

If i am wrong someone please correct me

Hello Branko,

Its true that when we set b = null
it will be available for Garbage Collection but before doing that we r sending the reference variable as a parameter in function s
___________________
a.s(b);
___________________
it means that now that object is referenced by local variable of method "s"
and thus it depends on the method so according to me the correct answer should be "d".
I m sorry in my last post i wrote it as "c" it was just a mistake.
Plz feel free to give ur suggestions.

Abhishek

hello abishek,
i feel, the reference variable b sent as the parameter will have a allias in the method body... so it does not come into picture when b is set to null.. i feel it is eligible for garbage collection when it is set to null...

It is possible that there could be another reference variable in the method which is set to point to the object.

I am still going with a)
Why? If we reference b somewhere and set b to null than the reference of b will point to null also. Am I on the right track?
[ March 14, 2006: Message edited by: Branko Santo ]

I would say the answer is d. There is no way to be absolutely sure when b will be GC-ed. We do not know if object a has any members of type b and that s is a 'setter' for that class member. if it is the case then b will be GC after 'a=null'. But if method s is not a 'setter', then b would be eligible for GC after b=null line.
So again, my guess is (d).
Alex

I think the answer is b. Eventhough the reference is passed to a method, when that method returns, any local variable referencing the object will no longer refer to it (local scope). So, after line 1, the object should be available for garbage collection.
[ March 14, 2006: Message edited by: Kotto Bass ]

Originally posted by Abhishekxp sh:
Hello Ranchers,

void start()
{
...
a.s(b);
b = null; //line1
a = null; //line2
.....
.

We all know that B cannot be garbage collected until at least b is set to null.

As for dealing with the a.s(b) ---- a copy of the b reference is passed to a.s(). depending on what s() does a referece can be kept around for a long time. S could spin off a low priorty thread that has an endless loop that process B. also s() could set a static reference to "B" and then "B" will never be GC'ed

I stand corrected there is no way to know!