Are static fields open for garbage collection?

Question

Given an hypothetical utility class that is used only in program setup:

class MyUtils {
   private static MyObject myObject = new MyObject();
   /*package*/s         


        

Answer 1

myObject is a reference and not an object. An object is automatically garbage collected when no reference points to it because it is unreachable.

So also the object behind a static reference "myObject" can be garbage collected if you dereference it with

myObject = null;

and there are no other references to this object.

However static references and variables remain for the lifetime of your program.