Where did variable = null as “object destroying” come from?

Question

Working on a number of legacy systems written in various versions of .NET, across many different companies, I keep finding examples of the following pattern:

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Answer 1

I've seen this in some Java code before. It was used on a static variable to signal that the object should be destroyed.

It probably didn't originate from Java though, as using it for anything other than a static variable would also not make sense in Java.