CODEWITHSUNDEEP
androidmemory-leaks
nmw01223
nmw01223

Reputation: 1723

Android memory leak - deadly embrace

Initially I didn't pay a lot of attention to the possibility of memory leaks in Android, given the nature of managed code / garbage collection and so on. I'm thinking this might have been a bit naive. Here's the question:

Say there is an activity - MyActivity. When the OS starts it, in its onCreate() this instantiates another class (MyOtherClass) and keeps a reference to it. However say the instance of MyOtherClass also keeps a reference to the context - which happens also to be a reference to the instance of MyActivity.

Now something happens - say the screen gets rotated. OS calls the activity onDestroy() and drops the reference to that old instance of MyActivity. However, that activity instance still has a reference to an instance of MyOtherClass, which in turn has an instance to the activity.

So, am I right in thinking those two classes are going to keep each other alive for evermore?

If so, I guess possible answers are (a) don't keep a context reference, get it another way, or (b) in the activity onDestroy() drop any references it has to anything else, then it all ought to just collapse.

Upvotes: 1

Views: 153

Answers (1)

auselen
auselen

Reputation: 28087

Java wouldn't allow cyclic links to keep each other alive (in memory). However if you have declared references static or created singleton style objects, Java won't help you there.

A good start might be reading avoiding memory leaks.

Upvotes: 1

Related Questions