/* * Copyright (c) 1997, 2003, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. * DO NOT ALTER OR REMOVE COPYRIGHT NOTICES OR THIS FILE HEADER. * * This code is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it * under the terms of the GNU General Public License version 2 only, as * published by the Free Software Foundation. Oracle designates this * particular file as subject to the "Classpath" exception as provided * by Oracle in the LICENSE file that accompanied this code. * * This code is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT * ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or * FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License * version 2 for more details (a copy is included in the LICENSE file that * accompanied this code). * * You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License version * 2 along with this work; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, * Inc., 51 Franklin St, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301 USA. * * Please contact Oracle, 500 Oracle Parkway, Redwood Shores, CA 94065 USA * or visit www.oracle.com if you need additional information or have any * questions. */ package java.lang.ref; /** * Weak reference objects, which do not prevent their referents from being * made finalizable, finalized, and then reclaimed. Weak references are most * often used to implement canonicalizing mappings. * *
Suppose that the garbage collector determines at a certain point in time
* that an object is weakly
* reachable. At that time it will atomically clear all weak references to
* that object and all weak references to any other weakly-reachable objects
* from which that object is reachable through a chain of strong and soft
* references. At the same time it will declare all of the formerly
* weakly-reachable objects to be finalizable. At the same time or at some
* later time it will enqueue those newly-cleared weak references that are
* registered with reference queues.
*
* @author Mark Reinhold
* @since 1.2
*/
public class WeakReference