title: Can you have memory leaks with a garbage collector?
body: <p>If I have a garbage collector that tracks every object allocated and deallocates them as soon as they no longer have usable references to them can you still have a memory leak?</p>
  
  <p>Considering a memory leak is allocations without any reference isn't that impossible or am I missing something?</p>
  
  <p>Edit: So what I'm counting as a memory leak is allocations which you no longer have any reference to in the code.  Large numbers of accumulating allocations which you still have references to aren't the leaks I'm considering here.</p>
  
  <p>I'm also only talking about normal state of the art G.C., It's been a while but I know cases like cyclical references don't trip them up.  I don't need a specific answer for any language, this is just coming from a conversation I was having with a friend.  We were talking about Actionscript and Java but I don't care for answers specific to those.</p>
  
  <p>Edit2: From the sounds of it, there doesn't seem to be any reason code can completely lose the ability to reference an allocation and not have a GC be able to pick it up, but I'm still waiting for more to weigh in.</p>