Chapter 7. Advanced Garbage Collection

In the last chapter we introduced the basic theory of Java garbage collection. From that starting point, we will move forward to introduce the theory of modern Java garbage collectors. This is an area that has unavoidable tradeoffs that guide the engineer’s choice of collector.

To begin with we’ll introduce and delve into the other collectors the HotSpot JVM provides. These include the ultra low-pause, mostly concurrent collector (CMS) and the modern general-purpose collector (G1).

We will also consider some more rarely seen collectors. These are:

  • Shenandoah

  • C4

  • Balanced

  • Legacy HotSpot collectors

Not all of these collectors are used in the HotSpot virtual machine—we will also be discussing the collectors of two other virtual machines: IBM J9 (a formerly closed source JVM that IBM is in the process of opening) and Azul Zing (a proprietary JVM). We have previously introduced both of these VMs in “Meet the JVMs”.

Tradeoffs and Pluggable Collectors

One aspect of the Java platform that beginners don’t always immediately recognize is that while Java has a garbage collector, the language and VM specifications do not say how GC should be implemented. In fact, there have been Java implementations (e.g., Lego Mindstorms) that didn’t implement any kind of GC at all!1

Within the Sun (now Oracle) environment, the GC subsystem is treated as a pluggable subsystem. This means that the same Java program can execute with different garbage ...

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