Are Android Static References Strong

Question

I have a singleton that I'd like to keep alive for the lifetime of an Application.

public final class KeepAlive extends Whatever {
    private KeepAlive() {}

    private static class Singleton {
        private static final KeepAlive instance = new KeepAlive();
    }
}

Is Singleton.instance considered a strong reference, so that it will not get GC'ed?

UPDATE: Does Android use a custom classloader? Is so, would it ever unload a class like KeepAlive or Singleton?

Answer 1

The short answer - yes. Once it's created, it will not be garbage-collected.