Which JVM to choose for GC hacking?

Question

I have a design for a GC algorithm that I would like to implement for a JVM, to allow benchmarking.

Does anyone have any experience as to which implementation would allo

Answer 1

I'm not aware of any that don't have a built-in GC; not much of a Java without one. Why not start with OpenJDK or Harmony?

Answer 2

maybe you don't need a JVM but a virtual machine would be sufficient for testing your algorithm. Unless, you are obliged to use a JVM, you can use APache Harmony or I would recommend another VM that was created on a phd thesis called VmKit. You can take a look at it and browse the source

Answer 3

I think that the Maxine Research VM from Oracle Labs would be a perfect match for your needs.

Quote from the first page of their wiki:

Project Overview

In this era of modern, managed languages we demand ever more from our virtual machines: better performance, more scalability, and support for the latest new languages. Research and experimentation is essential but no longer practical in the context of mature, complex, production VMs written in multiple languages.

The Maxine VM is a next generation platform that establishes a new standard of productivity in this area of research. It is written entirely in Java, completely compatible with modern Java IDEs and the standard JDK, features a modular architecture that permits alternate implementations of subsystems such as GC and compilation to be plugged in, and is accompanied by a dedicated development tool (the Maxine Inspector) for debugging and visualizing nearly every aspect of the VM's runtime state.

Here's an excelent video demonstrating its memory monitoring utilities:

• Introduction to the Maxine Inspector