Java Certification Question 0049

Which of the following statements are true?

1) The automatic garbage collection of the JVM prevents programs from ever running out of memory
2) A program can suggest that garbage collection be performed but not force it
3) Garbage collection is platform independent
4) An object becomes eligible for garbage collection when all references denoting it are set to null.

Answers 2 and 4:

2) A program can suggest that garbage collection be performed but not force it
4) A reference becomes eligable for garbage collection when it is assigned to null

If a program keeps creating new references without any being discarded it may run out of memory. Unlike most aspects of Java garbage collection is platform dependent.