Learning Resources
 

Classes

The introduction to object-oriented concepts in the lesson titled Object-oriented Programming Concepts used a bicycle class as an example, with racing bikes, mountain bikes, and tandem bikes as subclasses. Here is sample code for a possible implementation of a Bicycleclass, to give you an overview of a class declaration. Subsequent sections of this lesson will back up and explain class declarations step by step. For the moment, don't concern yourself with the details.

public class Bicycle {
        
    // the Bicycle class has
    // three fields
    public int cadence;
    public int gear;
    public int speed;
        
    // the Bicycle class has
    // one constructor
    public Bicycle(int startCadence, int startSpeed, int startGear) {
        gear = startGear;
        cadence = startCadence;
        speed = startSpeed;
    }
        
    // the Bicycle class has
    // four methods
    public void setCadence(int newValue) {
        cadence = newValue;
    }
        
    public void setGear(int newValue) {
        gear = newValue;
    }
        
    public void applyBrake(int decrement) {
        speed -= decrement;
    }
        
    public void speedUp(int increment) {
        speed += increment;
    }
        
}

A class declaration for a MountainBikeclass that is a subclass of Bicyclemight look like this:

public class MountainBike extends Bicycle {
        
    // the MountainBike subclass has
    // one field
    public int seatHeight;

    // the MountainBike subclass has
    // one constructor
    public MountainBike(int startHeight, int startCadence,
                        int startSpeed, int startGear) {
        super(startCadence, startSpeed, startGear);
        seatHeight = startHeight;
    }   
        
    // the MountainBike subclass has
    // one method
    public void setHeight(int newValue) {
        seatHeight = newValue;
    }   

}

MountainBikeinherits all the fields and methods of Bicycleand adds the field seatHeightand a method to set it (mountain bikes have seats that can be moved up and down as the terrain demands).

Declaring Classes

You've seen classes defined in the following way:

class MyClass {
    // field, constructor, and 
    // method declarations
}

This is a class declaration. The class body (the area between the braces) contains all the code that provides for the life cycle of the objects created from the class: constructors for initializing new objects, declarations for the fields that provide the state of the class and its objects, and methods to implement the behavior of the class and its objects.

The preceding class declaration is a minimal one. It contains only those components of a class declaration that are required. You can provide more information about the class, such as the name of its superclass, whether it implements any interfaces, and so on, at the start of the class declaration. For example,

class MyClass extends MySuperClass implements YourInterface {
    // field, constructor, and
    // method declarations
}

means that MyClassis a subclass of MySuperClassand that it implements the YourInterfaceinterface.

You can also add modifiers like public or private at the very beginning—so you can see that the opening line of a class declaration can become quite complicated. The modifiers public and private, which determine what other classes can access MyClass, are discussed later in this lesson. The lesson on interfaces and inheritance will explain how and why you would use the extends and implements keywords in a class declaration. For the moment you do not need to worry about these extra complications.

In general, class declarations can include these components, in order:

1. Modifiers such as public, private, and a number of others that you will encounter later.
2. The class name, with the initial letter capitalized by convention.
3. The name of the class's parent (superclass), if any, preceded by the keyword extends. A class can only extend (subclass) one parent.
4. A comma-separated list of interfaces implemented by the class, if any, preceded by the keyword implements. A class can implement more than one interface.
5. The class body, surrounded by braces, {}.

Declaring Member Variables

There are several kinds of variables:

• Member variables in a class—these are called fields.
• Variables in a method or block of code—these are called local variables.
• Variables in method declarations—these are called parameters.

The Bicycleclass uses the following lines of code to define its fields:

public int cadence;
public int gear;
public int speed;

Field declarations are composed of three components, in order:

1. Zero or more modifiers, such as publicor private.
2. The field's type.
3. The field's name.

The fields of Bicycleare named cadence, gear, and speedand are all of data type integer (int). The publickeyword identifies these fields as public members, accessible by any object that can access the class.

Access Modifiers

The first (left-most) modifier used lets you control what other classes have access to a member field. For the moment, consider only publicand private. Other access modifiers will be discussed later.

• public modifier—the field is accessible from all classes.
• private modifier—the field is accessible only within its own class.

In the spirit of encapsulation, it is common to make fields private. This means that they can only be directly accessed from the Bicycle class. We still need access to these values, however. This can be done indirectly by adding public methods that obtain the field values for us:

public class Bicycle {
        
    private int cadence;
    private int gear;
    private int speed;
        
    public Bicycle(int startCadence, int startSpeed, int startGear) {
        gear = startGear;
        cadence = startCadence;
        speed = startSpeed;
    }
        
    public int getCadence() {
        return cadence;
    }
        
    public void setCadence(int newValue) {
        cadence = newValue;
    }
        
    public int getGear() {
        return gear;
    }
        
    public void setGear(int newValue) {
        gear = newValue;
    }
        
    public int getSpeed() {
        return speed;
    }
        
    public void applyBrake(int decrement) {
        speed -= decrement;
    }
        
    public void speedUp(int increment) {
        speed += increment;
    }
}

Types

All variables must have a type. You can use primitive types such as int, float, boolean, etc. Or you can use reference types, such as strings, arrays, or objects.

Variable Names

All variables, whether they are fields, local variables, or parameters, follow the same naming rules and conventions that were covered in the Language Basics lesson, Variables—Naming.

In this lesson, be aware that the same naming rules and conventions are used for method and class names, except that

• the first letter of a class name should be capitalized, and
• the first (or only) word in a method name should be a verb.

Defining Methods

Here is an example of a typical method declaration:

public double calculateAnswer(double wingSpan, int numberOfEngines,
                              double length, double grossTons) {
    //do the calculation here
}

The only required elements of a method declaration are the method's return type, name, a pair of parentheses, (), and a body between braces, {}.

More generally, method declarations have six components, in order:

1. Modifiers—such as public, private, and others you will learn about later.
2. The return type—the data type of the value returned by the method, or voidif the method does not return a value.
3. The method name—the rules for field names apply to method names as well, but the convention is a little different.
4. The parameter list in parenthesis—a comma-delimited list of input parameters, preceded by their data types, enclosed by parentheses, (). If there are no parameters, you must use empty parentheses.
5. An exception list—to be discussed later.
6. The method body, enclosed between braces—the method's code, including the declaration of local variables, goes here.

Modifiers, return types, and parameters will be discussed later in this lesson. Exceptions are discussed in a later lesson.

The signature of the method declared above is:

calculateAnswer(double, int, double, double)

Naming a Method

Although a method name can be any legal identifier, code conventions restrict method names. By convention, method names should be a verb in lowercase or a multi-word name that begins with a verb in lowercase, followed by adjectives, nouns, etc. In multi-word names, the first letter of each of the second and following words should be capitalized. Here are some examples:

run
runFast
getBackground
getFinalData
compareTo
setX
isEmpty

Typically, a method has a unique name within its class. However, a method might have the same name as other methods due to method overloading.

Overloading Methods

The Java programming language supports overloading methods, and Java can distinguish between methods with different method signatures. This means that methods within a class can have the same name if they have different parameter lists (there are some qualifications to this that will be discussed in the lesson titled "Interfaces and Inheritance").

Suppose that you have a class that can use calligraphy to draw various types of data (strings, integers, and so on) and that contains a method for drawing each data type. It is cumbersome to use a new name for each method—for example, drawString, drawInteger, drawFloat, and so on. In the Java programming language, you can use the same name for all the drawing methods but pass a different argument list to each method. Thus, the data drawing class might declare four methods named draw, each of which has a different parameter list.

public class DataArtist {
    ...
    public void draw(String s) {
        ...
    }
    public void draw(int i) {
        ...
    }
    public void draw(double f) {
        ...
    }
    public void draw(int i, double f) {
        ...
    }
}

Overloaded methods are differentiated by the number and the type of the arguments passed into the method. In the code sample, draw(String s)and draw(int i)are distinct and unique methods because they require different argument types.

You cannot declare more than one method with the same name and the same number and type of arguments, because the compiler cannot tell them apart.

The compiler does not consider return type when differentiating methods, so you cannot declare two methods with the same signature even if they have a different return type.

Providing Constructors for Your Classes

A class contains constructors that are invoked to create objects from the class blueprint. Constructor declarations look like method declarations—except that they use the name of the class and have no return type. For example, Bicyclehas one constructor:

public Bicycle(int startCadence, int startSpeed, int startGear) {
    gear = startGear;
    cadence = startCadence;
    speed = startSpeed;
}

To create a new Bicycleobject called myBike, a constructor is called by the newoperator:

Bicycle myBike = new Bicycle(30, 0, 8);

new Bicycle(30, 0, 8)creates space in memory for the object and initializes its fields.

Although Bicycleonly has one constructor, it could have others, including a no-argument constructor:

public Bicycle() {
    gear = 1;
    cadence = 10;
    speed = 0;
}

Bicycle yourBike = new Bicycle();invokes the no-argument constructor to create a new Bicycleobject called yourBike.

Both constructors could have been declared in Bicyclebecause they have different argument lists. As with methods, the Java platform differentiates constructors on the basis of the number of arguments in the list and their types. You cannot write two constructors that have the same number and type of arguments for the same class, because the platform would not be able to tell them apart. Doing so causes a compile-time error.

You don't have to provide any constructors for your class, but you must be careful when doing this. The compiler automatically provides a no-argument, default constructor for any class without constructors. This default constructor will call the no-argument constructor of the superclass. In this situation, the compiler will complain if the superclass doesn't have a no-argument constructor so you must verify that it does. If your class has no explicit superclass, then it has an implicit superclass of Object, which does have a no-argument constructor.

You can use a superclass constructor yourself. The MountainBikeclass at the beginning of this lesson did just that. This will be discussed later, in the lesson on interfaces and inheritance.

You can use access modifiers in a constructor's declaration to control which other classes can call the constructor.

Passing Information to a Method or a Constructor

The declaration for a method or a constructor declares the number and the type of the arguments for that method or constructor. For example, the following is a method that computes the monthly payments for a home loan, based on the amount of the loan, the interest rate, the length of the loan (the number of periods), and the future value of the loan:

public double computePayment(
                  double loanAmt,
                  double rate,
                  double futureValue,
                  int numPeriods) {
    double interest = rate / 100.0;
    double partial1 = Math.pow((1 + interest), 
                    - numPeriods);
    double denominator = (1 - partial1) / interest;
    double answer = (-loanAmt / denominator)
                    - ((futureValue * partial1) / denominator);
    return answer;
}

This method has four parameters: the loan amount, the interest rate, the future value and the number of periods. The first three are double-precision floating point numbers, and the fourth is an integer. The parameters are used in the method body and at runtime will take on the values of the arguments that are passed in.

Parameter Types

You can use any data type for a parameter of a method or a constructor. This includes primitive data types, such as doubles, floats, and integers, as you saw in the computePaymentmethod, and reference data types, such as objects and arrays.

Here's an example of a method that accepts an array as an argument. In this example, the method creates a new Polygonobject and initializes it from an array of Pointobjects (assume that Pointis a class that represents an x, y coordinate):

public Polygon polygonFrom(Point[] corners) {
    // method body goes here
}

Arbitrary Number of Arguments

You can use a construct called varargs to pass an arbitrary number of values to a method. You use varargs when you don't know how many of a particular type of argument will be passed to the method. It's a shortcut to creating an array manually (the previous method could have used varargs rather than an array).

To use varargs, you follow the type of the last parameter by an ellipsis (three dots, ...), then a space, and the parameter name. The method can then be called with any number of that parameter, including none.

public Polygon polygonFrom(Point... corners) {
    int numberOfSides = corners.length;
    double squareOfSide1, lengthOfSide1;
    squareOfSide1 = (corners[1].x - corners[0].x)
                     * (corners[1].x - corners[0].x) 
                     + (corners[1].y - corners[0].y)
                     * (corners[1].y - corners[0].y);
    lengthOfSide1 = Math.sqrt(squareOfSide1);

    // more method body code follows that creates and returns a 
    // polygon connecting the Points
}

You can see that, inside the method, cornersis treated like an array. The method can be called either with an array or with a sequence of arguments. The code in the method body will treat the parameter as an array in either case.

You will most commonly see varargs with the printing methods; for example, this printfmethod:

public PrintStream printf(String format, Object... args)

allows you to print an arbitrary number of objects. It can be called like this:

System.out.printf("%s: %d, %s%n", name, idnum, address);

or like this

System.out.printf("%s: %d, %s, %s, %s%n", name, idnum, address, phone, email);

or with yet a different number of arguments.

Parameter Names

When you declare a parameter to a method or a constructor, you provide a name for that parameter. This name is used within the method body to refer to the passed-in argument.

The name of a parameter must be unique in its scope. It cannot be the same as the name of another parameter for the same method or constructor, and it cannot be the name of a local variable within the method or constructor.

A parameter can have the same name as one of the class's fields. If this is the case, the parameter is said to shadow the field. Shadowing fields can make your code difficult to read and is conventionally used only within constructors and methods that set a particular field. For example, consider the following Circleclass and its setOriginmethod:

public class Circle {
    private int x, y, radius;
    public void setOrigin(int x, int y) {
        ...
    }
}

The Circleclass has three fields: x, y, and radius. The setOriginmethod has two parameters, each of which has the same name as one of the fields. Each method parameter shadows the field that shares its name. So using the simple names xor ywithin the body of the method refers to the parameter, not to the field. To access the field, you must use a qualified name. This will be discussed later in this lesson in the section titled "Using the thisKeyword."

Passing Primitive Data Type Arguments

Primitive arguments, such as an intor a double, are passed into methods by value. This means that any changes to the values of the parameters exist only within the scope of the method. When the method returns, the parameters are gone and any changes to them are lost. Here is an example:

public class PassPrimitiveByValue {

    public static void main(String[] args) {
           
        int x = 3;
           
        // invoke passMethod() with 
        // x as argument
        passMethod(x);
           
        // print x to see if its 
        // value has changed
        System.out.println("After invoking passMethod, x = " + x);
           
    }
        
    // change parameter in passMethod()
    public static void passMethod(int p) {
        p = 10;
    }
}

When you run this program, the output is:

After invoking passMethod, x = 3

Passing Reference Data Type Arguments

Reference data type parameters, such as objects, are also passed into methods by value. This means that when the method returns, the passed-in reference still references the same object as before. However, the values of the object's fields can be changed in the method, if they have the proper access level.

For example, consider a method in an arbitrary class that moves Circleobjects:

public void moveCircle(Circle circle, int deltaX, int deltaY) {
    // code to move origin of 
    // circle to x+deltaX, y+deltaY
    circle.setX(circle.getX() + deltaX);
    circle.setY(circle.getY() + deltaY);
        
    // code to assign a new 
    // reference to circle
    circle = new Circle(0, 0);
}

Let the method be invoked with these arguments:

moveCircle(myCircle, 23, 56)

Inside the method, circleinitially refers to myCircle. The method changes the x and y coordinates of the object that circlereferences (i.e., myCircle) by 23 and 56, respectively. These changes will persist when the method returns. Then circleis assigned a reference to a new Circleobject with x = y = 0. This reassignment has no permanence, however, because the reference was passed in by value and cannot change. Within the method, the object pointed to by circlehas changed, but, when the method returns, myCirclestill references the same Circleobject as before the method was called.

Objects

A typical Java program creates many objects, which as you know, interact by invoking methods. Through these object interactions, a program can carry out various tasks, such as implementing a GUI, running an animation, or sending and receiving information over a network. Once an object has completed the work for which it was created, its resources are recycled for use by other objects.

Here's a small program, called CreateObjectDemo, that creates three objects: one Pointobject and two Rectangleobjects. You will need all three source files to compile this program.

public class CreateObjectDemo {

    public static void main(String[] args) {
		
        // Declare and create a point object
        // and two rectangle objects.
        Point originOne = new Point(23, 94);
        Rectangle rectOne = new 
            Rectangle(originOne, 100, 200);
        Rectangle rectTwo =
            new Rectangle(50, 100);
		
        // display rectOne's width,
        // height, and area
        System.out.println("Width of rectOne: "
                           + rectOne.width);
        System.out.println("Height of rectOne: "
                           + rectOne.height);
        System.out.println("Area of rectOne: "
                           + rectOne.getArea());
		
        // set rectTwo's position
        rectTwo.origin = originOne;
		
        // display rectTwo's position
        System.out.println("X Position of rectTwo: "
                           + rectTwo.origin.x);
        System.out.println("Y Position of rectTwo: "
                           + rectTwo.origin.y);
		
        // move rectTwo and display 
        // its new position
        rectTwo.move(40, 72);
        System.out.println("X Position of rectTwo: "
                           + rectTwo.origin.x);
        System.out.println("Y Position of rectTwo: "
                           + rectTwo.origin.y);
    }
}

This program creates, manipulates, and displays information about various objects. Here's the output:

Width of rectOne: 100
Height of rectOne: 200
Area of rectOne: 20000
X Position of rectTwo: 23
Y Position of rectTwo: 94
X Position of rectTwo: 40
Y Position of rectTwo: 72

The following three sections use the above example to describe the life cycle of an object within a program. From them, you will learn how to write code that creates and uses objects in your own programs. You will also learn how the system cleans up after an object when its life has ended.

Creating Objects

As you know, a class provides the blueprint for objects; you create an object from a class. Each of the following statements taken from the CreateObjectDemoprogram creates an object and assigns it to a variable:

Point originOne = new Point(23, 94);
Rectangle rectOne = new Rectangle(originOne, 100, 200);
Rectangle rectTwo = new Rectangle(50, 100);

The first line creates an object of the Pointclass, and the second and third lines each create an object of the Rectangleclass.

Each of these statements has three parts (discussed in detail below):

1. Declaration: The code set in bold are all variable declarations that associate a variable name with an object type.
2. Instantiation: The new keyword is a Java operator that creates the object.
3. Initialization: The new operator is followed by a call to a constructor, which initializes the new object.

Declaring a Variable to Refer to an Object

Previously, you learned that to declare a variable, you write:

type name;

This notifies the compiler that you will use name to refer to data whose type is type. With a primitive variable, this declaration also reserves the proper amount of memory for the variable.

You can also declare a reference variable on its own line. For example:

Point originOne;

If you declare originOnelike this, its value will be undetermined until an object is actually created and assigned to it. Simply declaring a reference variable does not create an object. For that, you need to use the newoperator, as described in the next section. You must assign an object to originOnebefore you use it in your code. Otherwise, you will get a compiler error.

A variable in this state, which currently references no object, can be illustrated as follows (the variable name, originOne, plus a reference pointing to nothing):

Instantiating a Class

The new operator instantiates a class by allocating memory for a new object and returning a reference to that memory. The new operator also invokes the object constructor.

The new operator requires a single, postfix argument: a call to a constructor. The name of the constructor provides the name of the class to instantiate.

The new operator returns a reference to the object it created. This reference is usually assigned to a variable of the appropriate type, like:

Point originOne = new Point(23, 94);

The reference returned by the new operator does not have to be assigned to a variable. It can also be used directly in an expression. For example:

int height = new Rectangle().height;

This statement will be discussed in the next section.

Initializing an Object

Here's the code for the Point class:

public class Point {
    public int x = 0;
    public int y = 0;
    //constructor
    public Point(int a, int b) {
        x = a;
        y = b;
    }
}

This class contains a single constructor. You can recognize a constructor because its declaration uses the same name as the class and it has no return type. The constructor in the Point class takes two integer arguments, as declared by the code (int a, int b). The following statement provides 23 and 94 as values for those arguments:

Point originOne = new Point(23, 94);

The result of executing this statement can be illustrated in the next figure:

Here's the code for the Rectangle class, which contains four constructors:

public class Rectangle {
    public int width = 0;
    public int height = 0;
    public Point origin;

    // four constructors
    public Rectangle() {
        origin = new Point(0, 0);
    }
    public Rectangle(Point p) {
        origin = p;
    }
    public Rectangle(int w, int h) {
        origin = new Point(0, 0);
        width = w;
        height = h;
    }
    public Rectangle(Point p, int w, int h) {
        origin = p;
        width = w;
        height = h;
    }

    // a method for moving the rectangle
    public void move(int x, int y) {
        origin.x = x;
        origin.y = y;
    }

    // a method for computing the area 
    // of the rectangle
    public int getArea() {
        return width * height;
    }
}

Each constructor lets you provide initial values for the rectangle's size and width, using both primitive and reference types. If a class has multiple constructors, they must have different signatures. The Java compiler differentiates the constructors based on the number and the type of the arguments. When the Java compiler encounters the following code, it knows to call the constructor in the Rectangle class that requires a Point argument followed by two integer arguments:

 
Rectangle rectOne = new Rectangle(originOne, 100, 200);

This calls one of Rectangle's constructors that initializes originto originOne. Also, the constructor sets widthto 100 and heightto 200. Now there are two references to the same Point object—an object can have multiple references to it, as shown in the next figure:

The following line of code calls the Rectangleconstructor that requires two integer arguments, which provide the initial values for width and height. If you inspect the code within the constructor, you will see that it creates a new Point object whose x and y values are initialized to 0:

Rectangle rectTwo = new Rectangle(50, 100);

The Rectangle constructor used in the following statement doesn't take any arguments, so it's called a no-argument constructor:

Rectangle rect = new Rectangle();

All classes have at least one constructor. If a class does not explicitly declare any, the Java compiler automatically provides a no-argument constructor, called the default constructor. This default constructor calls the class parent's no-argument constructor, or the Objectconstructor if the class has no other parent. If the parent has no constructor (Objectdoes have one), the compiler will reject the program.

Using Objects

Once you've created an object, you probably want to use it for something. You may need to use the value of one of its fields, change one of its fields, or call one of its methods to perform an action.

Referencing an Object's Fields

Object fields are accessed by their name. You must use a name that is unambiguous.

You may use a simple name for a field within its own class. For example, we can add a statement within the Rectangleclass that prints the widthand height:

System.out.println("Width and height are: " + width + ", " + height);

In this case, widthand heightare simple names.

Code that is outside the object's class must use an object reference or expression, followed by the dot (.) operator, followed by a simple field name, as in:

objectReference.fieldName

For example, the code in the CreateObjectDemo class is outside the code for the Rectangle class. So to refer to the origin, width, and height fields within the Rectangle object named rectOne, the CreateObjectDemo class must use the names rectOne.origin, rectOne.width, and rectOne.height, respectively. The program uses two of these names to display the width and the height of rectOne:

System.out.println("Width of rectOne: "
                   + rectOne.width);
System.out.println("Height of rectOne: "
                   + rectOne.height);

Attempting to use the simple names width and height from the code in the CreateObjectDemo class doesn't make sense — those fields exist only within an object — and results in a compiler error.

Later, the program uses similar code to display information about rectTwo. Objects of the same type have their own copy of the same instance fields. Thus, each Rectangle object has fields named origin, width, and height. When you access an instance field through an object reference, you reference that particular object's field. The two objects rectOne and rectTwo in the CreateObjectDemo program have different origin, width, and height fields.

To access a field, you can use a named reference to an object, as in the previous examples, or you can use any expression that returns an object reference. Recall that the new operator returns a reference to an object. So you could use the value returned from new to access a new object's fields:

int height = new Rectangle().height;

This statement creates a new Rectangle object and immediately gets its height. In essence, the statement calculates the default height of a Rectangle. Note that after this statement has been executed, the program no longer has a reference to the created Rectangle, because the program never stored the reference anywhere. The object is unreferenced, and its resources are free to be recycled by the Java Virtual Machine.

Calling an Object's Methods

You also use an object reference to invoke an object's method. You append the method's simple name to the object reference, with an intervening dot operator (.). Also, you provide, within enclosing parentheses, any arguments to the method. If the method does not require any arguments, use empty parentheses.

objectReference.methodName(argumentList);

or:

objectReference.methodName();

The Rectangle class has two methods: getArea() to compute the rectangle's area and move() to change the rectangle's origin. Here's the CreateObjectDemo code that invokes these two methods:

System.out.println("Area of rectOne: " + rectOne.getArea());
...
rectTwo.move(40, 72);

The first statement invokes rectOne's getArea()method and displays the results. The second line moves rectTwo because the move() method assigns new values to the object's origin.x and origin.y.

As with instance fields, objectReference must be a reference to an object. You can use a variable name, but you also can use any expression that returns an object reference. The new operator returns an object reference, so you can use the value returned from new to invoke a new object's methods:

new Rectangle(100, 50).getArea()

The expression new Rectangle(100, 50) returns an object reference that refers to a Rectangle object. As shown, you can use the dot notation to invoke the new Rectangle's getArea() method to compute the area of the new rectangle.

Some methods, such as getArea(), return a value. For methods that return a value, you can use the method invocation in expressions. You can assign the return value to a variable, use it to make decisions, or control a loop. This code assigns the value returned by getArea() to the variable areaOfRectangle:

int areaOfRectangle = new Rectangle(100, 50).getArea();

Remember, invoking a method on a particular object is the same as sending a message to that object. In this case, the object that getArea() is invoked on is the rectangle returned by the constructor.

The Garbage Collector

Some object-oriented languages require that you keep track of all the objects you create and that you explicitly destroy them when they are no longer needed. Managing memory explicitly is tedious and error-prone. The Java platform allows you to create as many objects as you want (limited, of course, by what your system can handle), and you don't have to worry about destroying them. The Java runtime environment deletes objects when it determines that they are no longer being used. This process is called garbage collection.

An object is eligible for garbage collection when there are no more references to that object. References that are held in a variable are usually dropped when the variable goes out of scope. Or, you can explicitly drop an object reference by setting the variable to the special value null. Remember that a program can have multiple references to the same object; all references to an object must be dropped before the object is eligible for garbage collection.

The Java runtime environment has a garbage collector that periodically frees the memory used by objects that are no longer referenced. The garbage collector does its job automatically when it determines that the time is right.