Re: When will finalize() be invoked?

From:
"John B. Matthews" <nospam@nospam.com>
Newsgroups:
comp.lang.java.help
Date:
Mon, 22 Dec 2008 07:16:44 -0500
Message-ID:
<nospam-774127.07164422122008@nntp.motzarella.org>
In article <gin216$85c$2@news.motzarella.org>,
 Mark Space <markspace@sbcglobal.net> wrote:

Nguyen Minh Hai wrote:

Then what is the purpose of introducing finalize() in Java?


Read Joshua Cramer's reply:

" Pretty much the only time you should be defining a finalize() method
is if you need to free memory associated with the object via native code. "


A common example is disposing of a graphics context that was created
directly, perhaps during offscreen drawing. The Graphics class
overrides finalize() to (eventually) free system resources by calling
dispose(); the latter may be invoked directly instead of waiting for
finalize() to be called:

<http://java.sun.com/javase/6/docs/api/java/awt/Graphics.html#dispose()>
<http://java.sun.com/javase/6/docs/api/java/awt/Graphics.html#finalize()>

For example:

<code>
    private static final int SIZE = 128;
    private static final Font FONT = new
        Font("Serif", Font.BOLD, SIZE * 7 / 8);
    private static final BufferedImage errorImage = new
        BufferedImage(SIZE, SIZE, BufferedImage.TYPE_INT_ARGB); {
        Graphics2D g2d = errorImage.createGraphics();
        g2d.setPaint(Color.red.darker());
        g2d.setFont(FONT);
        String s = "\u2298";
        int w2 = g2d.getFontMetrics().stringWidth(s) / 2;
        int h2 = g2d.getFontMetrics().getDescent();
        g2d.drawString(s, SIZE / 2 - w2 , SIZE / 2 + h2);
        g2d.dispose();
    }
</code>

--
John B. Matthews
trashgod at gmail dot com
http://home.roadrunner.com/~jbmatthews/

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