Getting an object to kill it self

Question

Hi
This is going to sound a bit nuts, but I need to find a way to get an object to null it self out at a specific point.
Say I have a class (called 'bobs creator) that creates an object called bob, bob runs for a bit and then finally decides life is no longer worth living. He then calls a method in the 'bobs creator� class - this method nulls out the location where bob was created originally.
I have managed to do this successfully, however I get a error in the console telling me of a null pointer exception - understandable as the call to "kill bob" has no where to return.
Any ideas?
PS: Bob is a threaded object, and part of the method that kills him halts his thread - if that makes any difference.

Answer 1

The following shows a way to set the thread name to null, then in the run method check it. It might do what you want.
public class XXXX implements Runnable
    private Thread thread = null;
    public static void main(String[] args)
        XXXX thd = new XXXX();
        thd.start();
        try
            Thread.sleep(5000);
        catch (InterruptedException ex)
            ex.printStackTrace();
        thd.stop();
    public void start()
        if (thread == null)
            thread = new Thread(this, "theThread");
            thread.start();
    public void stop()
        thread = null;
    public void run()
        Thread myThread = Thread.currentThread();
        while (thread == myThread)
            try
                Thread.sleep(1000);
            catch (InterruptedException ex)
                ex.printStackTrace();
            System.out.println("Sleeping. . .");
        System.out.println("Ended");
}