Assigning “null” to objects in every application after their use

Question

• Do you always assign null to an object after its scope has been reached?

• Or do you rely on the JVM for garbage collection?

Answer 1

Garbage collection is not as magical as you might expect. As long as an object is referenced from any reachable object it simply can't be collected. So it might be absolutely necessary to null a reference in order to avoid memory leaks. I don't say you should do this always, but always when it's necessary.