FinalizableReference.java

/*
 * Copyright (C) 2007 Google Inc.
 *
 * Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
 * you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
 * You may obtain a copy of the License at
 *
 * http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
 *
 * Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
 * distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
 * WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
 * See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
 * limitations under the License.
 */

package com.google.common.base;

/**
 * Implemented by references that have code to run after garbage collection of
 * their referents.
 *
 * @see FinalizableReferenceQueue
 * @author Bob Lee
 */
public interface FinalizableReference {

  /**
   * Invoked on a background thread after the referent has been garbage
   * collected unless security restrictions prevented starting a background
   * thread, in which case this method is invoked when new references
   * are created.
   */
  void finalizeReferent();
}