GCViewer, garbage collection and heap analysis tool
One month ago I wrote about the benefits of using Java’s built-in garbage collection logging. With it, you can find answers to important important questions such as “how much memory is my app using” and “how much time is being spent doing garbage collection.”
There is, of course, a hitch: for any non-trivial application or problem, you will be quickly buried by a mountainous log file. The longer your application runs, the larger the log file. It keeps growing, and growing, and…
GCViewer
What will you do? Write a second Java app, one that parses the log file — attempt a homegrown analysis tool? No! Instead, I suggest you use GCViewer, a free open-source tool for visualizing the Java gc log file.
GCViewer helps you get a quick and comprehensive look at how your application is behaving. Things like total heap vs. heap used and full GC events become very apparent. Useful statistics such as time spent during GC are calculated for your convenience.
GCViewer is created by tagtraum industries and is available under an LGPL license.
Java garbage collection logging
Java’s built-in garbage collection logging provides a quick, easy, and free way to profile or troubleshoot your Java application. It can help you understand your application in terms of:
- memory usage (object count and size)
- heap size (initial and over time)
- GC metrics (frequency, pause time, and amount freed)
So, now you can answer questions like “how much memory is my app using,” “how much time is being spent doing garbage collection,” and “how big is the heap over time.”
For help analyzing and visualizing a GC log file, be sure to check out GCViewer, a garbage collection and heap analysis tool.
GC logging is enabled using JVM arguments; below are the arguments I use. Read more
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