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Asked: 2026-06-02T04:29:30+00:00

I know an object reference or object handle has a size itself and the

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I know an object reference or object handle has a size itself and the size is JVM dependent. I am just wondering what will happen after it has been explicitly set to null. Say we have a variable Object o = new Object() and later we set o = null. Will it be garbage collected?

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  1. Editorial Team

    In your example:

    Object o = new Object()
o = null;

    Assume o is either a field or a local variable/parameter. In the former situation it occupies 4/8 bytes in some other (outer) object. These bytes will be garbage collected when outer object is garbage collected.

    If o is a parameter/local variable, no garbage collection is needed, the JVM will “recycle” the stack and simply reuse/erase that space.

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