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Final, Finally and Finalize - three special words in Java

Archive - Originally posted on "The Horse's Mouth" - 2007-02-05 08:08:00 - Graham Ellis

A final method or variable is one that can't be overridden - you can define a method as final within a class to ensure that any extensions to the class don't replace it.

If you add a finally block onto the end of a try / catch exception handler, you're defining a block of code that will be run if the try is entered, even if problems occur and your method returns from within a catch rather than continuing.

A finalize method is your destructor method - code that's run to clean up objects that are no longer required. For example, objects which are memory cached would be flushed back to the disc in your finalize.