试着运行这个程序，以便更好地理解

public class FinalizeTest 
{       
    static {
        System.out.println(Runtime.getRuntime().freeMemory());
    }

    public void run() {
        System.out.println("run");
        System.out.println(Runtime.getRuntime().freeMemory());
    }

     protected void finalize() throws Throwable { 
         System.out.println("finalize");
         while(true)
             break;          
     }

     public static void main(String[] args) {
            for (int i = 0 ; i < 500000 ; i++ ) {
                    new FinalizeTest().run();
            }
     }
}

An Object becomes eligible for Garbage collection or GC if its not reachable from any live threads or any static refrences in other words you can say that an object becomes eligible for garbage collection if its all references are null. Cyclic dependencies are not counted as reference so if Object A has reference of object B and object B has reference of Object A and they don't have any other live reference then both Objects A and B will be eligible for Garbage collection. Generally an object becomes eligible for garbage collection in Java on following cases:

该对象的所有引用显式设置为空，例如object = null 对象在块内创建，一旦控件退出该块，引用就会离开作用域。 父对象设置为空，如果一个对象持有另一个对象的引用，并且当您将容器对象的引用设置为空时，子对象或包含对象自动符合垃圾收集的条件。 如果一个对象只有通过WeakHashMap的活动引用，那么它就有资格进行垃圾收集。

protected void finalize() throws Throwable {} every class inherits the finalize() method from java.lang.Object the method is called by the garbage collector when it determines no more references to the object exist the Object finalize method performs no actions but it may be overridden by any class normally it should be overridden to clean-up non-Java resources ie closing a file if overridding finalize() it is good programming practice to use a try-catch-finally statement and to always call super.finalize(). This is a safety measure to ensure you do not inadvertently miss closing a resource used by the objects calling class protected void finalize() throws Throwable { try { close(); // close open files } finally { super.finalize(); } } any exception thrown by finalize() during garbage collection halts the finalization but is otherwise ignored finalize() is never run more than once on any object

引用自:http://www.janeg.ca/scjp/gc/finalize.html

你也可以看看这篇文章:

对象终结和清理

一般来说，最好不要依赖finalize()来做任何清理等。

根据Javadoc(值得一读)，它是:

当垃圾回收确定对象不再有引用时，由垃圾回收器在对象上调用。

正如Joachim指出的，如果对象总是可访问的，那么在程序的生命周期中，这可能永远不会发生。

此外，垃圾收集器不保证在任何特定时间运行。一般来说，我想说的是finalize()可能不是最好的方法，除非有特定的事情需要它。

Java allows objects to implement a method called finalize() that might get called. finalize() method gets called if the garbage collector tries to collect the object. If the garbage collector doesn't run, the method doesn't get called. If the garbage collector fails to collect the object and tries to run it again, the method doesn't get called in the second time. In practice, you are highly unlikely to use it in real projects. Just keep in mind that it might not get called and that it definitely won't be called twice. The finalize() method could run zero or one time. In the following code, finalize() method produces no output when we run it since the program exits before there is any need to run the garbage collector.

源

正如在https://wiki.sei.cmu.edu/confluence/display/java/MET12-J.+Do+not+use+finalizers上指出的那样，

There is no fixed time at which finalizers must be executed because time of execution depends on the Java Virtual Machine (JVM). The only guarantee is that any finalizer method that executes will do so sometime after the associated object has become unreachable (detected during the first cycle of garbage collection) and sometime before the garbage collector reclaims the associated object's storage (during the garbage collector's second cycle). Execution of an object's finalizer may be delayed for an arbitrarily long time after the object becomes unreachable. Consequently, invoking time-critical functionality such as closing file handles in an object's finalize() method is problematic.