Question

private void func()
{
  String str = "hi!";
}

this is my code.

suppose I called func() in the onCreate event.
I want to the near exact time, if thats possible to be determined, when GC will free the memory used by str.

Actually str stores a password.
and i want to free it as soon as I can.
currently after using str I set its value to something irrelevant.

I heard GC is the only thing that can free memories?
is that correct?
is there any other way of freeing the memory of a variable.

Answer 1

I want to the near exact time, if thats possible to be determined,
when GC will free the memory used by str.

Bad luck, you can’t have it.

Solution: store it in a char[] instead of a String, and zero out all elements of the char[] when you are done with it.