Re: finalize called on an object that's still in scope?

From:
Tom Hawtin <usenet@tackline.plus.com>
Newsgroups:
comp.lang.java.programmer
Date:
Wed, 25 Apr 2007 01:06:40 +0100
Message-ID:
<462e9b7a$0$8738$ed2619ec@ptn-nntp-reader02.plus.net>
Paul Tomblin wrote:

In a previous article, Piotr Kobzda <pikob@gazeta.pl> said:

Paul Tomblin wrote:

I've got some code that looks sort of like

   LineupProxy lineup = new LineupProxySubClass();
   lineup.connect();
   while(true)
   {
      try { Thread.sleep(5000); } catch (InterruptedException ie) {}}
   }

To prevent your local variable from dereferencing, cause referencing it
in a loop, e.g. that way:


You mean from becoming unreachable. Dereferencing is what you are
proposing to do to it.

http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=define%3Adereference

That doesn't work, technically.

     while(true)
     {
        try { Thread.sleep(5000); } catch (InterruptedException ie) {}}
        lineup.hashCode(); // or System.identityHashCode(), or ...
     }


Is this a hack, or is it normal that a local variable would be destructed
before it goes out of scope?


Destructed is a C++ term. It's probably a bad idea not to think of Java
finalising and destructing, because they are very different concepts. A
finaliser is not the opposite of a constructor.

The local variable is not finalised. The object that was once referred
to by the local variable is (or may be) finalised. Scope doesn't
actually have anything to do with it at all.

Tom Hawtin

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