Does using final for variables in Java improve gar

Question

Today my colleagues and me have a discussion about the usage of the final keyword in Java to improve the garbage collection.

For example, if you write a method like:

public Double doCalc(final Double value)
{
   final Double maxWeight = 1000.0;
   final Double totalWeight = maxWeight * value;
   return totalWeight;  
}

Declaring the variables in the method final would help the garbage collection to clean up the memory from the unused variables in the method after the method exits.

Is this true?

Answer 1

No, it is emphatically not true.

Remember that final does not mean constant, it just means you can't change the reference.

final MyObject o = new MyObject();
o.setValue("foo"); // Works just fine
o = new MyObject(); // Doesn't work.

There may be some small optimisation based around the knowledge that the JVM will never have to modify the reference (such as not having check to see if it has changed) but it would be so minor as to not worry about.

Final should be thought of as useful meta-data to the developer and not as a compiler optimisation.

Answer 2

Well, I don't know about the use of the "final" modifier in this case, or its effect on the GC.

But I can tell you this: your use of Boxed values rather than primitives (e.g., Double instead of double) will allocate those objects on the heap rather than the stack, and will produce unnecessary garbage that the GC will have to clean up.

I only use boxed primitives when required by an existing API, or when I need nullable primatives.

Answer 3

Declaring a local variable final will not affect garbage collection, it only means you can not modify the variable. Your example above should not compile as you are modifying the variable totalWeight which has been marked final. On the other hand, declaring a primitive (double instead of Double) final will allows that variable to be inlined into the calling code, so that could cause some memory and performance improvement. This is used when you have a number of public static final Strings in a class.

In general, the compiler and runtime will optimize where it can. It is best to write the code appropriately and not try to be too tricky. Use final when you do not want the variable to be modified. Assume that any easy optimizations will be performed by the compiler, and if you are worried about performance or memory use, use a profiler to determine the real problem.

Answer 4

GC acts on unreachable refs. This has nothing to do with "final", which is merely an assertion of one-time assignment. Is it possible that some VM's GC can make use of "final"? I don't see how or why.

Answer 5

There is a not so well known corner case with generational garbage collectors. (For a brief description read the answer by benjismith for a deeper insight read the articles at the end).

The idea in generational GCs is that most of the time only young generations need to be considered. The root location is scanned for references, and then the young generation objects are scanned. During this more frequent sweeps no object in the old generation are checked.

Now, the problem comes from the fact that an object is not allowed to have references to younger objects. When a long lived (old generation) object gets a reference to a new object, that reference must be explicitly tracked by the garbage collector (see article from IBM on the hotspot JVM collector), actually affecting the GC performance.

The reason why an old object cannot refer to a younger one is that, as the old object is not checked in minor collections, if the only reference to the object is kept in the old object, it will not get marked, and would be wrongly deallocated during the sweep stage.

Of course, as pointed by many, the final keyword does not reallly affect the garbage collector, but it does guarantee that the reference will never be changed into a younger object if this object survives the minor collections and makes it to the older heap.

Articles:

IBM on garbage collection: history, in the hotspot JVM and performance. These may no longer be fully valid, as it dates back in 2003/04, but they give some easy to read insight into GCs.

Sun on Tuning garbage collection

Answer 6

final on local variables and parameters makes no difference to the class files produced, so cannot affect runtime performance. If a class has no subclasses, HotSpot treats that class as if it is final anyway (it can undo later if a class that breaks that assumption is loaded). I believe final on methods is much the same as classes. final on static field may allow the variable to be interpreted as a "compile-time constant" and optimisation to be done by javac on that basis. final on fields allows the JVM some freedom to ignore happens-before relations.