JLS3

Finalizers

A finalizer may be invoked explicitly.: “A finalizer may be invoked explicitly, just like any other method.”; JLS3, 12.6; http://java.sun.com/docs/books/jls/third_edition/html/execution.html#12.6

Initialization

Class initialization: “The procedure for initializing a class or interface is then as follows: […]; recursively perform this entire procedure for the superclass. […]; execute either the class variable initializers and static initializers of the class, or the field initializers of the interface, in textual order, as though they were a single block, except that final class variables and fields of interfaces whose values are compile-time constants are initialized first […].”; JLS3, 12.4.2; http://java.sun.com/docs/books/jls/third_edition/html/execution.html#12.4.2
Instance initialization: “All the instance variables in the new object, including those declared in superclasses, are initialized to their default values […]; evaluate the arguments [of] and process [explicit or implicit] constructor invocation recursively […]; Execute the instance initializers and instance variable initializers […] in the left-to-right order in which they appear textually in the source code for the class. […]; Execute the rest of the body of this constructor. ”; JLS3, 12.5; http://java.sun.com/docs/books/jls/third_edition/html/execution.html#12.5
Instance initializer: “Instance initializers (§8.6) are blocks of executable code that may be used to help initialize an instance when it is created (§15.9).”; JLS3, 8 Classes; http://java.sun.com/docs/books/jls/third_edition/html/classes.html
instance variable initializer: “Initialization expressions for instance variables”; JLS3, 8.3.2.2 Initializers for Instance Variables; http://java.sun.com/docs/books/jls/third_edition/html/classes.html#8.3.2.2

Inner Classes

Inner Classes: “Inner classes include local (§14.3), anonymous (§15.9.5) and non-static member classes (§8.5).”; JLS3, 8.1.3; http://java.sun.com/docs/books/jls/third_edition/html/classes.html#8.1.3

null

Casting the Expression »null«: “The null reference can always be cast to any reference type.”; JLS3, 4.1; http://java.sun.com/docs/books/jls/third_edition/html/typesValues.html#4.1
The null Type is an expression type (aka “static type”), not a Value Type (aka “dynamic type”).: “There is also a special null type, the type of the expression null”; JLS3, 4.1; http://java.sun.com/docs/books/jls/third_edition/html/typesValues.html#4.1
The type of »null« always is »null«.: A null literal is always of the null type.; JLS3, 3.10.7; http://java.sun.com/docs/books/jls/third_edition/html/lexical.html#3.10.7

Objects

An object is an instance of a class or an array.: “An object is a class instance or an array.”; JLS3, 4.3.1; http://java.sun.com/docs/books/jls/third_edition/html/typesValues.html#4.3.1; “An object (§4.3.1) is a dynamically created instance of a class type or a dynamically created array.”; JLS3, 4; http://java.sun.com/docs/books/jls/third_edition/html/typesValues.html; “In the Java virtual machine, every object belongs to some particular class: the class that was mentioned in the creation expression that produced the object, or the class whose Class object was used to invoke a reflective method to produce the object, or the String class for objects implicitly created by the string concatenation operator +. This class is called the class of the object. An object is said to be an instance of its class and of all superclasses of its class.”; JLS SE 7, 4.12.6; http://docs.oracle.com/javase/specs/jls/se7/html/jls-4.html

References

Reference values are pointers.: “(...) reference values (...) are pointers”; JLS3, 4.3.1.; http://java.sun.com/docs/books/jls/third_edition/html/typesValues.html#4.3.1

`this`

“When used as a primary expression, the keyword this denotes a value, that is a reference to the object for which the instance method was invoked, or to the object being constructed.”

JLS3, 15.8.3

http://java.sun.com/docs/books/jls/second_edition/html/expressions.doc.html#251519

Types

Variables and expressions have type.: “The Java programming language is a strongly typed language, which means that every variable and every expression has a type that is known at compile time.”; JLS3, 4; http://java.sun.com/docs/books/jls/third_edition/html/typesValues.html
Objects have a Type: “New objects of the types Boolean, Byte, Short, Character, Integer, Long, Float and Double may be implicitly created by boxing conversion”; JLS3, 4.3.1; http://java.sun.com/docs/books/jls/third_edition/html/typesValues.html#4.3.1

Variables

Variables are typed storage locations.: “A variable is a storage location and has an associated type”; JLS3, 4.12; http://java.sun.com/docs/books/jls/third_edition/html/typesValues.html#4.12