How garbage collector identifies which object it should pick?

Question

Accepted Answer

Garbage collector identifies objects to pick based on their reachability.

Garbage collector starts from a set of root objects and identifies all objects that are reachable from them.
Objects that are not reachable are considered garbage and are eligible for collection.
Reachability is determined by following object references from root objects.
Objects that are referenced by other reachable objects are also considered reachable.
Objects that are not referenced by any reachable object are considered garbage.

Accepted Answer

Although this is the job is done garbage collector that free such objects by invoking gc() method explicitely, when no more references available to such objects and this information is sufficient for garbage collector to identiefy what should be picked or what shoul not. It is also pointed out that run time environment automatically run the garbage collector its own when it found the right time or when needed.

Accepted Answer

Garbage collector checks for any other memory location from stack referencing the current object, If it could not find any reference then it picks that object

How garbage collector identifies which object it should pick?

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