How does "this" escape the constructor in Java?

Question

I've heard about this happening in non thread-safe code due to improperly constructed objects but I really don't have the concept down, even after reading about in in Goetz's book. I'd like to solidify my understanding of this code smell as I maybe doing it and not even realize it. Please provide code in your explanation to make it stick, thanks.

Answer 1

Really simple example:

public class Test
{
    private static Test lastCreatedInstance;

    public Test()
    {
        lastCreatedInstance = this;
    }
}