What are GC Roots and how do they affect the automatic memory management process?

GC Roots are objects that are considered entry points for the garbage collector when determining object reachability in memory. They serve as starting points for traversing the object graph.

In Android (and in Java in general), GC Roots can be:

• References from thread stacks (local variables and method parameters)
• Static fields of classes
• References from JNI (Java Native Interface)
• Active objects in system classes

The garbage collector begins traversal from GC Roots and marks all objects reachable through a chain of references. Objects that cannot be reached are considered unused and are subject to deletion.

Thus, GC Roots influence the memory management process by determining which objects are considered alive and not eligible for garbage collection.