strange 'out' variable, System.out.println()

Question

Following is the code from java.lang.System class (JDK version 1.6)

public final static PrintStream out = nullPrintStream(); //out is set to \'null\'

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Answer 1

System.in, out, and err are managed by the JVM from native code. This whole magic with nullPrintStream() was there to keep javac from inlining these fields. Since java 7 it looks like

public final static PrintStream out = null;