In Java, what purpose do the keywords `final`, `finally` and `finalize` fulfil?

• "Final" denotes that something cannot be changed. You usually want to use this on static variables that will hold the same value throughout the life of your program.
• "Finally" is used in conjunction with a try/catch block. Anything inside of the "finally" clause will be executed regardless of if the code in the 'try' block throws an exception or not.
• "Finalize" is called by the JVM before an object is about to be garbage collected.

final

final can be used to mark a variable "unchangeable"

private final String name = "foo";  //the reference name can never change

final can also make a method not "overrideable"

public final String toString() {  return "NULL"; }

final can also make a class not "inheritable". i.e. the class can not be subclassed.

public final class finalClass {...}
public class classNotAllowed extends finalClass {...} // Not allowed

finally

finally is used in a try/catch statement to execute code "always"

lock.lock();
try {
  //do stuff
} catch (SomeException se) {
  //handle se
} finally {
  lock.unlock(); //always executed, even if Exception or Error or se
}

Java 7 has a new try with resources statement that you can use to automatically close resources that explicitly or implicitly implement java.io.Closeable or java.lang.AutoCloseable

finalize

finalize is called when an object is garbage collected. You rarely need to override it. An example:

protected void finalize() {
  //free resources (e.g. unallocate memory)
  super.finalize();
}

The final keyword is used to declare constants.

final int FILE_TYPE = 3;

The finally keyword is used in a try catch statement to specify a block of code to execute regardless of thrown exceptions.

try
{
  //stuff
}
catch(Exception e)
{
  //do stuff
}
finally
{
  //this is always run
}

And finally (haha), finalize im not entirely sure is a keyword, but there is a finalize() function in the Object class.