how to destroy an object in java?

Answer E is correct answer. If E is not there, you will soon run out of memory (or) No correct answer.

Object should be unreachable to be eligible for GC. JVM will do multiple scans and moving objects from one generation to another generation to determine the eligibility of GC and frees the memory when the objects are not reachable.

To clarify why the other answers can not work:

1. System.gc() (along with Runtime.getRuntime().gc(), which does the exact same thing) hints that you want stuff destroyed. Vaguely. The JVM is free to ignore requests to run a GC cycle, if it doesn't see the need for one. Plus, unless you've nulled out all reachable references to the object, GC won't touch it anyway. So A and B are both disqualified.

2. Runtime.getRuntime.gc() is bad grammar. getRuntime is a function, not a variable; you need parentheses after it to call it. So B is double-disqualified.

3. Object has no delete method. So C is disqualified.

4. While Object does have a finalize method, it doesn't destroy anything. Only the garbage collector can actually delete an object. (And in many cases, they technically don't even bother to do that; they just don't copy it when they do the others, so it gets left behind.) All finalize does is give an object a chance to clean up before the JVM discards it. What's more, you should never ever be calling finalize directly. (As finalize is protected, the JVM won't let you call it on an arbitrary object anyway.) So D is disqualified.

5. Besides all that, object.doAnythingAtAllEvenCommitSuicide() requires that running code have a reference to object. That alone makes it "alive" and thus ineligible for garbage collection. So C and D are double-disqualified.

Short Answer - E

Answer isE given that the rest are plainly wrong, but ..

Long Answer - It isn't that simple; it depends ...

Simple fact is, the garbage collector may never decide to garbage collection every single object that is a viable candidate for collection, not unless memory pressure is extremely high. And then there is the fact that Java is just as susceptible to memory leaks as any other language, they are just harder to cause, and thus harder to find when you do cause them!

The following article has many good details on how memory management works and doesn't work and what gets take up by what. How generational Garbage Collectors work and Thanks for the Memory ( Understanding How the JVM uses Native Memory on Windows and Linux )

If you read the links, I think you will get the idea that memory management in Java isn't as simple as a multiple choice question.

Set to null. Then there are no references anymore and the object will become eligible for Garbage Collection. GC will automatically remove the object from the heap.