How to force garbage collection in Java?

Question

Is it possible to force garbage collection in Java, even if it is tricky to do? I know about System.gc(); and Runtime.gc(); but they only suggest to do GC. How can I force GC?

Answer 1

Another options is to not create new objects.

Object pooling is away to reduce the need GC in Java.

Object pooling is generally not going to be faster than Object creation (esp for lightweight objects) but it is faster than Garbage Collection. If you created 10,000 objects and each object was 16 bytes. That's 160,000 bytes GC has to reclaim. On the other hand, if you don't need all 10,000 at the same time, you can create a pool to recycle/reuse the objects which eliminates the need to construct new objects and eliminates the need to GC old objects.

Something like this (untested). And if you want it to be thread safe you can swap out the LinkedList for a ConcurrentLinkedQueue.

public abstract class Pool<T> {
    private int mApproximateSize;
    private LinkedList<T> mPool = new LinkedList<>();

    public Pool(int approximateSize) {
        mApproximateSize = approximateSize;
    }

    public T attain() {
        T item = mPool.poll();
        if (item == null) {
            item = newInstance();
        }
        return item;
    }

    public void release(T item) {
        int approxSize = mPool.size(); // not guaranteed accurate
        if (approxSize < mApproximateSize) {
            recycle(item);
            mPool.add(item);
        } else if (approxSize > mApproximateSize) {
            decommission(mPool.poll());
        }
    }

    public abstract T newInstance();

    public abstract void recycle(T item);

    public void decommission(T item) { }

}

Answer 2

If you are running out of memory and getting an OutOfMemoryException you can try increasing the amount of heap space available to java by starting you program with java -Xms128m -Xmx512m instead of just java. This will give you an initial heap size of 128Mb and a maximum of 512Mb, which is far more than the standard 32Mb/128Mb.

Answer 3

To manually Request GC (not from System.gc()) :

1. Go To : bin folder in JDK eg.-C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.6.0_31\bin
2. Open jconsole.exe
3. Connect to the desired local Process.
4. Go To memory tab and click perform GC.

Answer 4

I would like to add some thing here. Please not that Java runs on Virtual Machine and not actual Machine. The virtual machine has its own way of communication with the machine. It may varry from system to system. Now When we call the GC we ask the Virtual Machine of Java to call the Garbage Collector.

Since the Garbage Collector is with Virtual Machine , we can not force it to do a cleanup there and then. Rather that we queue our request with the Garbage Collector. It depends on the Virtual Machine, after particular time (this may change from system to system, generally when the threshold memory allocated to the JVM is full) the actual machine will free up the space. :D

Answer 5

Useful for batch/crontab:

jdk1.7.0/bin/jcmd <pid> GC.run

See :

• https://docs.oracle.com/javase/8/docs/technotes/guides/troubleshoot/tooldescr006.html

Answer 6

If you need to force garbage collection, perhaps you should consider how you're managing resources. Are you creating large objects that persist in memory? Are you creating large objects (e.g., graphics classes) that have a Disposable interface and not calling dispose() when done with it? Are you declaring something at a class level that you only need within a single method?