How to Handle Java Finalization's Memory-Retention Issues

inalization is a feature of the Java programming language that allows you to perform postmortem cleanup on objects that the garbage collector has found to be unreachable. It is typically used to reclaim native resources associated with an object. The following is a simple finalization example:

public class Image1 {
// pointer to the native image data
private int nativeImg;
private Point pos;
private Dimension dim;
// it disposes of the native image;
// successive calls to it will be ignored
private native void disposeNative();
public void dispose() { disposeNative(); }
protected void finalize() { dispose(); }
static private Image1 randomImg;
}

Figure 1. A Finalizable Object obj