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Message:

Garbage collection again

Posted by Kumar on January 22, 2001 at 11:29 PM

Yes, I agree that it is a good idea to set an object to null to inform the GC that it can go ahead and release the memory.

But, I assume that the GC will be intelligent enough to know that for local automatic variables(objects) it will go ahead and release the memory for the object once the object is out of scope (when you exit the function). Do we need to explicitly set the object to null even in this case.
I am not sure if this topic is addressed in great detail. I don't want my team of programmers to go overboard and go about setting all objects to null once they have used them.
My personal opinion to this is that GC should have enough intelligence to detect that a local variable is going out of scope and that no other object has reference to the local object.
Can you throw more light on what is the language stand on this?
Thanks
Kumar

• Just another thought Kishori Sharan January 23, 2001 at 11:10 AM (0)
• More information Ivan Villanueva January 23, 2001 at 10:26 AM (1)
  • Thanks for your inputs Kumar January 25, 2001 at 12:05 AM (0)