Why would you ever implement finalize()?

Question

I've been reading through a lot of the rookie Java questions on finalize() and find it kind of bewildering that no one has really made it plain that finalize() is an unreliable way to clean up resources. I saw someone comment that they use it to clean up Connections, which is really scary since the only way to come as close to a guarantee that a Connection is closed is to implement try (catch) finally.

I was not schooled in CS, but I have been programming in Java professionally for close to a decade now and I have never seen anyone implement finalize() in a production system ever. This still doesn't mean that it doesn't have its uses, or that people I've worked with have been doing it right.

So my question is, what use cases are there for implementing finalize()that cannot be handled more reliably via another process or syntax within the language?

Please provide specific scenarios or your experience, simply repeating a Java text book, or finalize's intended use is not enough, as is not the intent of this question.

Answer 1

It can be handy to remove things that have been added to a global/static place (out of need), and need to be removed when the object is removed. For instance:

 private void addGlobalClickListener() {

        weakAwtEventListener = new WeakAWTEventListener(this);

  Toolkit.getDefaultToolkit().addAWTEventListener(weakAwtEventListener, AWTEvent.MOUSE_EVENT_MASK);

    }

    @Override

    protected void finalize() throws Throwable {

        super.finalize();

        if(weakAwtEventListener != null) {

         Toolkit.getDefaultToolkit().removeAWTEventListener(weakAwtEventListener);

        }

    }

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