Posted in: Garbage Collection in java
The Garbage Collector has evolved so much that for the Java 1.6 you know for sure:
- it uses different methods to manage references and the corresponding Heap addresses; the most trivial method is that is uses a table to count how many references are used to reach a Heap memory zone; when the number of references gets to 0 then the memory zone is released;
- it is a complex and very efficient JVM routine that will not interfere with your Java process performance;
- it will not save any out of memory situation (OutOfMemoryException); remember that any live object (it is reachable by a live reference) it is not collected;
- you can request garbage collector to make a memory clean explicitly by invoking theSystem.gc( ) method;
- it is not recommended to interfere with the garbage collector by calling System.gc( ) method, because you have not any guarantees on how it will behave