Re: Certification study group issue: Will the Garbage Collector pick up the rubish is you call it?

[Matthew Phillips <matthew_a_phillips@yahoo.com>]

Part I:

Both of those methods suggest the garbage collector
should run.  There is no way to force it to run.  


Part II:

I have never had to use either of these methods.  I
assume that the advantage is that you may want to try
to run the garbage collector on a different schedule
that the JVM.  The methods give you a way to attempt
to do this.


--- Lee Chalupa <lchalupa@seelink.org> wrote:
> 
> Can someone give me an Amen on this issue?  There
> are two parts to this issue
> 
> Part I:
> 
> An issue that came out of last night's meeting was
> from the following question:
> 
> "The method System.gc forces the garbage collection
> process to run."
> 
> True or False.
> 
> We are not sure.
> 
> Here is the research that I have found on the topic:
> 
> Mike Meyers has published a few editions of his
> certification book.
> Mike Meyer's book states:  "You cannot force the
> garbage collector to reclaim memory."
> 
> He explains elsewhere: "While you cannot force the
> garbage collector to reclaim memory, you can suggest
> that it 
> do so by calling the java.lang.System.gc() method or
> the java.lang.Runtime,getRunTime().gc() method. 
> Both of these 
> methods send a request to the garbage collector
> asking it to reclaim memory. The garbage collector
> can honor or 
> ignore the request at its whim.
> 
> I assume in other words this means that the garbage
> collection can just ignore the request and refuse to
> run.
> 
> 
> Here is another post I found on a java web site.  I
> have no idea how credible this source is.
> " System.gc() does not mean the garbage collector is
> called, it only suggests that the VM call it."
> 
> 
> Part II:
> 
> Ok. If the answer is True, then what is the value of
> invoking a method that has the discretion to
> run or not run.  If it wanted to run it would run
> without me invoking the method in the first place
> wouldn't it?
> 
> 
> Thanks for the help.
> 
> 
> Lee Chalupa
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 


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