Clear Memory Used by Vectors When You Close an Application:

Question

Which is the best way for liberate the memory used by the Vectors when you close the application that contain them?
In particular:
I use vec.clear(); when I close the Frame that contains the application, but I'm not sure if this is the best way.
Could S.O. tell me wether I'm wrong or not?
Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

A few things that may apply:
Until you have references to a variable, then the garbage collector will not free the memory allocated for that variable. For example:
Vector my_vector = new Vector();
Vector vector_2 = my_vector;
Until both my_vector and vector_2 are valid references, then the memory will not be freed.
You can get rid of a reference to a variable setting it to null. In our example:
my_vector = null;
vector_2 = null;
Then, the next time garbage collection runs, it will free the memory allocated for my_vector
If you cannot wait for the next time that garbage collection runs, you can explicitely force garbage collection.
System.gc();
Hope this helps.