How actually finalize() method works?

Question

Hi,
[b]
When the finalize method is called by GC or not? I made some simple test, please have a look at this code:
package finalizetest;
* @author krzys
public class Test {
    /** Creates a new instance of Test */
    public Test() {
    public void finalize() {
        System.out.println("finalize...");
     * @param args the command line arguments
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        // TODO code application logic here
        Test test = new Test();
        test = null;
        System.gc(); //when calling of GC is commented, then finalize doesn't work
}If the System.gc() is called then finalize is invoked, if the line is ommited, then happens nothing
How it works?
Krzysztof

Answer 1

There's no guarantee that finalize() will be called, ever. Don't explicitly call GC either - that's just setting yourself up for a bad design.
finalize() is just a last-ditch effort to cleanup in case the user of your object didn't explicitly tell it to cleanup. If an object needs to do cleanup work when not in use, then create a method to do that. For example, I/O streams have a close() method and require that it get called, especially if the stream is attached to an actual file handle.