Hi Angela,
that means that in the finalize method (which is a method like anyone else) you may reassign a reference to "this" to a reference variable that may point to "this", and this would, roughly, resurrect the object and prevent it from being gced...
which means that when a Test2 object will be gced, its finalize method reassigns a reference to itself to another reference (refToTest2) in another class (Test1) and the Test2 object that was to be gced is now reachable from an active part again...
I don't know if I'm clear with this explanation...
The code doesn't work as is, but it shows how you may resurrect an object...
HIH
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Valentin Crettaz
Sun Certified Programmer for
Java 2 Platform