Java, A Beginner's Guide, 5th Edition, 5th Edition

Garbage Collection and Finalizers

As you have seen, objects are dynamically allocated from a pool of free memory by using the new operator. As explained, memory is not infinite, and the free memory can be exhausted. Thus, it is possible for new to fail because there is insufficient free memory to create the desired object. For this reason, a key component of any dynamic allocation scheme is the recovery of free memory from unused objects, making that memory available for subsequent reallocation. In many programming languages, the release of previously allocated memory is handled manually. For example, in C++, you use the delete operator to free memory that was allocated. However, Java uses a different, more trouble-free approach: garbage collection. ...