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• Use of locks or other synchronization-based mechanisms within a finalizer can cause deadlock or starvation. This possibility arises because neither the invocation order nor the specific executing thread or threads for finalizers can be guaranteed or controlled.

Object finalizers have also been deprecated since Java 9. See MET02-J. Do not use deprecated or obsolete classes or methods for more information.

Because of these problems, finalizers must not be used in new classes.

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class MyFrame extends JFrame {
  private byte[] buffer = new byte[16 * 1024 * 1024];
  // Persists for at least two GC cycles
}

Compliant Solution (Superclass's finalizer)

When a superclass defines a finalize() method, make sure to decouple the objects that can be immediately garbage collected from those that must depend on the finalizer. This compliant solution ensures that the buffer can be reclaimed as soon as the object becomes unreachable.

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This noncompliant code example uses the System.runFinalizersOnExit() method to simulate a garbage-collection run. Note that this method is deprecated because of thread-safety issues; see MET02-J. Do not use deprecated or obsolete classes or methods.

According to the Java API [API 2014] class System, runFinalizersOnExit() method documentation,

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Joshua Bloch [Bloch 2008] suggests implementing a stop() method explicitly such that it leaves the class in an unusable state beyond its lifetime. A private field within the class can signal whether the class is unusable. All the class methods must check this field prior to operating on the class. This is akin to the "initialized flag"–compliant solution discussed in OBJ11-J. Be wary of letting constructors throw exceptions. As always, a good place to call the termination logic is in the finally block.

Exceptions

MET12-J-EX0: Finalizers may be used when working with native code because the garbage collector cannot reclaim memory used by code written in another language and because the lifetime of the object is often unknown. Again, the native process must not perform any critical jobs that require immediate resource deallocation.

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The ordering problem can be dangerous when dealing with native code. For example, if object A references object B (either directly or reflectively) and the latter gets finalized first, A's finalizer may end up dereferencing dangling native pointers. To impose an explicit ordering on finalizers, make sure that B remains reachable until A's finalizer has concluded. This can be achieved by adding a reference to B in some global state variable and removing it when A's finalizer executes. An alternative is to use the java.lang.ref references.

MET12-J-EX1: A class may use an empty final finalizer to prevent a finalizer attack, as specified in OBJ11-J. Be wary of letting constructors throw exceptions.

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Improper use of finalizers can result in resurrection of garbage-collection-ready objects and result in denial-of-service vulnerabilities.

Automated Detection

Related Vulnerabilities

AXIS2-4163 describes a vulnerability in the finalize() method in the Axis web services framework. The finalizer incorrectly calls super.finalize() before doing its own cleanup, leading to errors in GlassFish when the garbage collector runs.

Related Guidelines

Bibliography

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