CODEWITHSUNDEEP
javaandroid
user3134565
user3134565

Reputation: 965

understanding the relationship between static and weak reference

I was going through this tutorial and I decide to remove the static from this line of code:

private static Map map;

the code did not give any errors.. , however the weak reference did not get removed from the hashmap. Can you tell me why map must be static in order for weak reference to work ?

Upvotes: 0

Views: 121

Answers (2)

betteroutthanin
betteroutthanin

Reputation: 7556

If you simply remove static in 

private static Map map;

your code won't compile, because non-static variable cannot be referenced from a static context, which is the main method in this tutorial.

Upvotes: 0

Gabe Sechan
Gabe Sechan

Reputation: 93599

Static means there's only one instance of that variable that every instance of that class shares. Removing the static would mean that there are more of those maps around (one per instance of the class) and that those instances wouldn't have the same data.

Weak references are totally different. They are ways to keep a reference around but still let a variable be garbage collected if nobody else needs it. The two concepts have nothing to do with each other.

Upvotes: 1

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