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From: "Brian R. Hanson" <brh@cray.com>
Subject: Re: Java vs Ada 95 (Was Re: Once again,
 Ada absent from DoD SBIR solicitation)
Date: 1996/10/15
Message-ID: <3263B39A.59E2@cray.com>#1/1
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Date: 1996-10-15T00:00:00+00:00
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Dale Stanbrough wrote:
> 
> > I don't believe that Java even defines a way to explicitly deallocate
> > a specified piece of memory, like Ada's Unchecked_Conversion or C++'s
> > free().
> 
> The Java LRM recommends
> 
>    s = null;
> 
> to force the deallocation of items (at least i think it's "null"!)
This does not force the deallocation of the item.  It removes a
reference so that it can be reclaimed at some point (if not otherwise
referenced).  A common problem when coding in the presence of GC is
leaving a dangling reference so some unneeded item preventing it from
being reclaimed.  It is most unfortunate if it is the head of a very
large list or tree.

-- Brian Hanson
-- brh@cray.com