The Java® Language Specification, Java SE 7 Edition, Fourth Edition
by James Gosling, Bill Joy, Guy Steele, Gilad Bracha, Alex Buckley
Chapter 12. Execution
This chapter specifies activities that occur during execution of a program. It is organized around the life cycle of the Java Virtual Machine and of the classes, interfaces, and objects that form a program.
The Java Virtual Machine starts up by loading a specified class and then invoking the method main in this specified class. Section §12.1 outlines the loading, linking, and initialization steps involved in executing main, as an introduction to the concepts in this chapter. Further sections specify the details of loading (§12.2), linking (§12.3), and initialization (§12.4).
The chapter continues with a specification of the procedures for creation of new class instances (§12.5); and finalization of class instances (§12.6 ...
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