[gclist] A Java question.

[Mimir Reynisson]

>The Java specs allow implementations to ignore finalizers.
>I've been told that all commercial Java implementations
>take that option. Can anyone provide details, confirmation
>etc?

All Java VM's must call finalizers and all as far as I know do.
finalize() is used to free up bitmaps, file references, and other
non-Java-related "garbage". I think you may be talking about
the fact that once a finalizer has been called once, it will not
be called again. So if you create a reference to the object being
finalized in the finalizer, you essentially create a zombie object
and finalize() will not be called the next time it tries to gc that
object. Most of the time this is not a problem.

Cheers,

Mimir