Because they are reference types, instances of classes are stored on the heap. When you instantiate (or create) an instance of a class, the actual object is created on the heap and you reference the newly created object with a variable whose type corresponds to the class’ type. The variable that references the object is stored on the stack.
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| // New Person object created on the heap// p variable is a stack-based reference to the new objectPerson p = new Person("Cary", "Grant"); |
Because a class object is created on the heap, you don’t destroy the object explicitly, but it is automatically garbage collected. The object will be a candidate for garbage collection when there are no longer any variables that reference the object.
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| p = new Person("Jimmy", "Stewart");// No variable references Cary Grant anymore,// so he can be garbage-collected. |