Destroying component

Question

I have a class that spawns a thread, searching for the existence of a file in a certain directory. Once the file is dropped in to the directory, I get the name of the file dropped in, and a new instance of a separate class is created, to do further work with the file. Creation is pretty simple:
MyClass cl = new MyClass();
Once I am done using cl, I set a boolean in MyClass to true, which the parent class is constantly checking for this state. At this point, then, I want to get rid of the instance of MyClass, but keep the parent class instance running.
I cannot use System.exit() since I don't want to close the JVM completely. I tried cl.dispose(), but this appears to close down everything, as opposed to just getting rid of cl. Using cl.setEnabled(false) or cl.removeNotify() doesn't really seem to do much of anything. Is there another function I can call that will destroy the instance cl I have created, but allow the original to keep running? Thanks!

Answer 1

Hello,
Thank you mcuh for responding! Yes, that does indeed get rid of the class instance, as I can no longer make calls to the class functions...however, the window in which I was using to display the visual elements (menu items, buttons, etc.) is still hanging around. Tried using dispose() next, but again, both of the windows (the original parent, and the spawned class) close down. I need to still destroy window #2 (from cl), but keep around running the original. Thanks!