Java SE (Java Platform, Standard Edition)

Hi, I recently noticed (huge?) memory leaks in my application and suspect bindings to be the cause of all the evil.

I made a little test case, which confirms my suspicion:

import javafx.application.Application;
import javafx.beans.property.SimpleStringProperty;
import javafx.beans.property.StringProperty;
import javafx.scene.Scene;
import javafx.scene.control.Button;
import javafx.scene.layout.VBox;
import javafx.stage.Stage;

public class TestAppMemoryLeak extends Application {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        launch(args);
    }

    @Override
    public void start(Stage stage) throws Exception {
        VBox root = new VBox();

        Button button = null;

        for (int i = 0; i < 100000; i++) {
            button = new Button();
            button.textProperty().bind(text);
            button.textProperty().unbind(); // if you don't call this, you can notice the increased memory of the java process.
        }


        root.getChildren().add(button);
        Scene scene = new Scene(root);
        stage.setScene(scene);
        stage.show();
    }

    private StringProperty text = new SimpleStringProperty("test");
}

Now the problem is, HOW can I know, when a variable is no longer needed or overwritten by a new instance.

Just an example:

I have a ListView with a Cell Factory. In the updateItem method, I add a ContextMenu. The textProperty of each MenuItem is bound to a kind of global property, like in the example above. I have to do it in the updateItem method, since the ContextMenu differs depending on the item.

So every time the updateItem method is called a new ContextMenu is created, which binds some properties, but the old context menus remain in memory.

I guess there could be many more example.

How can I deal with it?