重新初始化没有更多内存的字符串数组

Question

In Java, since strings are immutable, when we re assign a string Array element to a different string and are out of memory would it compile and run fine?

my understanding is for example if there are 2 elements in a string array, "John" and "Henry", when i change the array's second element to "Tom", what happens to "Henry" since it cant be really over written (immutable strings) and behind the scenes is java pointing to a new location (should array locations not be next to each other? ).

I ran a test and it successfully changed the second element to Tom. It compiled and ran fine. As per my understanding this should not have been allowed because strings cant be over written and array are supposed to be consecutive memory locations. please clarify - thanks

Answer 1

Each cell of your array contains the address of a String instance. When you change the value of the second cell it just points to another String instance, and if the instance previously pointed by that cell is no longer pointed by any other variable, might be chosen for garbage collection.