Reference Strengths
Explore how different Java reference strengths—strong, soft, weak, and phantom—impact garbage collection and memory use. Understand how to manage object lifecycles for efficient resource handling and to avoid memory leaks, enabling you to write memory-conscious Java applications.
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Java usually manages memory automatically. However, we can influence when objects become eligible for garbage collection by using different reference strengths. Ordinary Java references are strong references by default. Soft references may be cleared in response to memory pressure, weak references may be cleared when an object is only weakly reachable, and phantom references support post-mortem cleanup tracking.
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What are the different reference types in Java?
What is a strong reference?
What are weak references?
To see how a weak reference behaves when the strong ...