When does the Java main(String args[]) method exit?

Question

Hi all,
I and my colleagues want to know, when does the main() method exit?
we wrote a small code as follows:
import java.awt.*;
public class Test {
public static void main(String[] args) {
Frame f = new Frame("hi");
f.show();
System.out.println("after show");
and ran the program, in which case I could see the printed message "after show", but although there is no code after the System.out.println(), the Java virtual machine does not exit and waits for the Frame to close.
My question is has the main method exited in this case? since it clearly shows that it does not have any more code to execute. Does java create the main method as a thread or as a process?
regards,
Harshad

Answer 1

To make your application terminate you need to add code to cause the AWT thread to handle the termination. In your code, before f.show(), try:
f.addWindowListener(new WindowAdapter() {
  public void windowClosing(WindowEvent e) {
    dispose();
  public void windowClosed(WindowEvent e) {
    System.exit(0);
});Now, at least you can click on the little "X" on the upper right-hand corner of the Frame (at least in Win95/98/NT) environments) to cause your application to receive a window closing event. It is also possible to add a menu with an option to exit; in that case I'd use an EventQueue to cause a window closing event to be sent.