title: Java object persistence question
body: <p>I have an object class called BOM.
  It has a method, getChildItem() which returns an Item object.</p>
  
  <p>Let's say I do this: </p>
  
  <pre><code> BOM model = new BOM();
   Item child = model.getChildItem();
   ArrayList a = new ArrayList();
  
   a.add(child);
   model.close();
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>What happens? Does it:</p>
  
  <ul>
  <li>Not actually close the model because the node’s in an array</li>
  <li>Still close the model as the child object, once created, is independent of the model bject.</li>
  <li>Close the model and set the child object to null (I’m pretty sure this doesn’t happen; it would wreak havoc and seems counterintuitive to the java garbage collection methodology)</li>
  </ul>