How to use the garbaje collector

[Eric]

Garbage collections will be handled by Java Virtual Machine itself means ,how does it know that the object is no longer needed by the program.
Memory recycling, if i use system.gc whether it's a worst programming style or optimized one.
Thanks.

Eric

[Felissa]

As a general statement you don't care if an object is no longer needed. But this means that you need to be careful. Unlike C++ you don't have an explicit destructor. Therefore you need to make sure you clean up after anything like database connections before the object goes out of scope.

I guess I'm not a fan of System.gc() - before the Java Virtual Machine throws an OutOfMemoryException it will do everything it can to clean up memory. If you're calling System.gc() it may help a little bit but I guess I question that it is going to do much for you. A decent Java program doesn't need to do it - know where memory is allocated and make sure you don't have references to it when youd don't want them.
greetings,

Felissa

[Daniel]

Overly simple explanation: the Java Virtual Machine will know to collect an object when it is no longer accessible by the code.

Example:

Code:

Object o = new Object();
 o = null; // the previously-created object is now unreachable
           // and is eligible for GC

Greetings.

Daniel