How to ensure finalize() is always called (Thinking in Java exercise)

Question

I\'m slowly working through Bruce Eckel\'s Thinking in Java 4th edition, and the following problem has me stumped:

Create a class with a fina

Answer 1

When the garbage collector finds an object that is eligible for collection but has a finalizer it does not deallocate it immediately. The garbage collector tries to complete as quickly as possible, so it just adds the object to a list of objects with pending finalizers. The finalizer is called later on a separate thread.

You can tell the system to try to run pending finalizers immediately by calling the method System.runFinalization after a garbage collection.

But if you want to force the finalizer to run, you have to call it yourself. The garbage collector does not guarantee that any objects will be collected or that the finalizers will be called. It only makes a "best effort". However it is rare that you would ever need to force a finalizer to run in real code.