Find out programmatically how many objects are eligible for garbage collection?

Question

Is it possible to find out programmatically how many objects are eligible for garbage collection and print out their quantity?

Erick Robertson · Accepted Answer · 2013-01-08 18:51:01Z

8

No, because if you have a reference to the object, it's not eligible for garbage collection.

answered Jan 8, 2013 at 18:51

Erick Robertson

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2 Comments

Louis Wasserman Over a year ago

Also, and perhaps more to the point: if the GC has gone to the trouble of finding out which objects are eligible for garbage collection, it's probably already collected them.

Alex Pilugin Over a year ago

yes, you are right, of course. And in fact, i guess, it does matter for a real life. I just wanted to find out some opportunity to check my SCJP 6 answers :) it's not for a real-life programming :)

AlexR · Accepted Answer · 2013-01-08 18:54:42Z

You cannot do this using conventional APIs. You can however estimate the memory that these objects occupy. To do this you can use utility named jmap that gives you objects that are not eligable for garbage collection. Then you can subtract memory that all these objects occupy from total heap. To estimate total heap check resident memory used by your application and subtract resident memory occupied by minimal applcation (HelloWord style).

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