Why is the finalize() method in java.lang.Object “protected”?

by

I answer your question with another question:

Why finalize method shouldn’t be protected?

In general, you should try to keep things as much private as possible. That’s what encapsulation is all about. Otherwise, you could make everything public. finalize can’t be private (since derived classes should be able to access it to be able to override it), so it should at least be protected but why give out more access when it’s not desirable?

After reading your comment more carefully, I guess I see your main point now. I think your point is since everything derives from java.lang.Object and consequently accesses its protected members, it wouldn’t make any difference for it (or any method in java.lang.Object for that matter) to be public as opposed to protected. Personally, I’d count this as a design flaw in Java. This is indeed fixed in C#. The problem is not why finalize is protected. That’s OK. The real issue is that you shouldn’t be able to call protected methods in the base class through an object reference of the base class type. Eric Lippert has a blog entry discussing why allowing such kind of access to protected members is a bad idea which is further elaborated on Stack Overflow in this question.

More Related Contents:

  1. When is the finalize() method called in Java?
  2. finalize() called on strongly reachable objects in Java 8
  3. Is there a destructor for Java?
  4. Why would you ever implement finalize()?
  5. Why is the finalize() method deprecated in Java 9?
  6. Java and manually executing finalize
  7. Replace a character specific number of times in String Java
  8. How do I check if a file exists in Java?
  9. How to determine day of week by passing specific date?
  10. Run a Java Application as a Service on Linux
  11. How to calculate elapsed time from now with Joda-Time?
  12. Java creating .jar file
  13. Encryption of video files?
  14. How do I move a file from one location to another in Java?
  15. Best way to compare dates in Android
  16. Create a jTDS connection string
  17. How to ensure completeness in an enum switch at compile time?
  18. In JUnit 5, how to run code before all tests
  19. javac1.8 class not found
  20. How Iterator’s remove method actually remove an object
  21. How to convert XML to JSON using only Jackson?
  22. getLocationOnScreen() vs getLocationInWindow()
  23. IntelliJ Build Error Context Mismatch
  24. Permutation algorithm without recursion? Java
  25. Java : Does wait() release lock from synchronized block
  26. Could not resolve placeholder in string value
  27. Error executing testng.xml through CLI : Could not find or load main class org.testng.TestNG
  28. Using a generic type with Gson
  29. Using Gson with Interface Types
  30. Pass variables to ActionListener in Java

Leave a Comment