Is this java Object eligible for garbage collection in List

Question

What I am asking might be a stupid question so please pardon me for that. So it goes like this :

List bossList = new ArrayList();
Bos         


        

Answer 1

ArrayList has Object[] elementData internally. When you added b to bossList ArrayList assigned elementData[0] = b. So when you assigned null to b the instance of Boss is still referenced from elementData[0] and cannot be GCed. But since ArrayList instance is referenced only from method's variable after the method returns both ArrayList and Boss instances will be eligible for GC.