>> Might the following be needed or not:
>>
>> Reference(T referent, ReferenceQueue<? super T> queue) {
>> this.referent = referent;
>> this.queue = (queue == null) ? ReferenceQueue.NULL : queue;
>> reachabilityFence(referent);
>> }
>
queue is marked volatile, so a simple reordering of the lines should be just as
effective:
Reference(T referent, ReferenceQueue<? super T> queue) {
this.queue = (queue == null) ? ReferenceQueue.NULL : queue;
this.referent = referent;
}
A simplistic interpretation of GC (as for example seen here:
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/10795505/how-do-garbage-collectors-know-about-references-on-the-stack-frame
) might lead one to believe that referent is reachable until the end of the
constructor because it's in the stack frame. The point at which reachability
analysis kicks in, in the middle of such a simple two liner and removes the
referent from the stack (or other variations such as inlining) is presumably
highly implementation dependent and should not be relied on, but I'm guessing
that's the reason you're not able to reproduce an early GC.
Thanks
Moh
