Weakhashmap : Using string from literal pool as key

Consider the following code snippet:

public class TestWeakHashMap
{
   private String str1 = new String("newString1");
   private String str2 = "literalString2";
   private String str3 = "literalString3";
   private String str4 = new String("newString4");
   private Map map = new WeakHashMap();

   private void testGC() throws IOException
   {
       map.put(str1, new Object());
       map.put(str2, new Object());
       map.put(str3, new Object());
       map.put(str4, new Object());

       /**
        * Discard the strong reference to all the keys
        */
       str1 = null;
       str2 = null;
       str3 = null;
       str4 = null;

       while (true) {
           System.gc();
           /**
            * Verify Full GC with the -verbose:gc option
            * We expect the map to be emptied as the strong references to
            * all the keys are discarded.
            */
           System.out.println("map.size(); = " + map.size() + "  " + map);
       }
   }
}

What do we expect the size of the map to be after full GC? I initially thought it should be empty. But it turned out to be 2.

Look at the way the four Strings are initialized. Two of them are defined using the 'new' operator, whereas the other two are defined as literals. The Strings defined using the 'new' operator would be allocated in the Java heap, but the Strings defined defined as literals would be in the literal pool.
The Strings allocated in the literal pool (Perm Space) would never be garbage collected.
This would mean that String 'str2' and 'str3' would always be strongly referenced and the corresponding entry would never be removed from the WeakHashMap.

So next time you create a 'new String()' , put it as a key in a WeakHashMap, and later intern() the String, beware - Your key will always be strongly referenced.

Invoking intern() method on a String will add your String to the literal pool if some other String equal to this String does not exist in the pool

private String str5 = (str4+str1).intern();