They are special variables that refer to parts of the runtime environment ... finding class metadata and using it to access methods and fields outside of the normal Java restrictions.

Whereas inheritance derives one class from another, composition defines a class as the sum of its parts ... accessible field, method, or constructor of its parent class. In Java, we use the ...

That’s a pretty drastic move. Finalize is defined right there in the Object class, right at the top of the Java hierarchy, more exposed than a public variable. But the semantics of the finalize method ...

It takes a single Java object as an argument, and returns a single Java object when the method concludes. Any method you can conjure up takes an object and returns an object that fulfills the Java ...