if I declared int a=2 , and it is not used anywhere in the code,does garbage collector will free it

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if I declared int a=2 , and it is not used anywhere in the code,does garbage collector will free it

Posted 7-Feb-15 20:20pm

Vivek S Kale

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Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov · Answer 1 · 2015-02-07T22:55:00

Solution 3

No! Your example uses value object (as opposed ) which does not have to be collected. More exactly, it could be a stack variable, then it will be removed when the stack frame is removed (say, on method return), and this has nothing to do with allocation or deallocation, or this could be an instance member of some object, so the object will be garbage collected, no matter is your member is used or not.

Besides, as it is pointed out in Solution 2, the variable could be optimized out by a compiler, then it would not exist at all, in first place.

—SA

Posted 7-Feb-15 22:55pm

Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov

Comments

Mehdi Gholam 8-Feb-15 5:45am

Yes, 5'ed

Frankie-C 8-Feb-15 6:48am

The removal of this kind of code, at compile time, is called 'dead code removal' and has another important scope related to the preprocessor conditional compile, it removes code that statically (at compile time) lead to a never executed condition.
In the following code the compiler found a clause that will never be satisfied and remove the unusefull code compacting the executable:

if (sizeof(a) < sizeof(b))
.... //do something
else
... //do other things
Because the result of operators sizeof are constants the compiler understand that one of the two parts will never execute, and simply remove it as dead code.

Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov 8-Feb-15 13:20pm

Sure. Thank you for useful explanation and example.
—SA

**Zoltán Zörgő** · Answer 2 · 2015-02-07T22:41:00

Solution 2

If you build as "release" instead of "debug", a variable that is declared but never used will be optimized on build, and actually not even put into the compiled code.

Posted 7-Feb-15 22:41pm

Zoltán Zörgő

Comments

Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov 8-Feb-15 4:57am

Not that this answer is wrong, but it is very confused. The inquirer confuses totally unrelated optimization and garbage collection and needs help to overcome the confusion first, otherwise your information won't help.
Please see my Solution 3.
—SA

Abhinav S · Answer 3 · 2015-02-07T21:14:00

Solution 1

Yes. It will be freed when the instance is not in use.

Posted 7-Feb-15 21:14pm

Abhinav S

Updated 7-Feb-15 21:15pm

v2

Comments

Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov 8-Feb-15 4:57am

Instance of what? Of the value object? :-)
—SA