Garbage collection notification?

Question

I\'d like to register a callback with the JVM so I know when garbage collection is happening. Is there any way to do this?

EDIT: I want to do this so I can log out

Answer 1

Regarding -Xloggc: As of jdk1.6 update 4 you can get the Sun/Oracle JVM to print out the date and time using -XX:+PrintGCDateStamps. This makes the logs much more useful, especially if you add a log scanner / monitor that can notify you of any GC issues.

• http://bugs.sun.com/bugdatabase/view_bug.do?bug_id=6517301
• http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/6u4-140071.html

Answer 2

When receiving the JVMTI event for Garbage Collection the JVM is technically stopped so it's unable to call back a Java listener via JNI.... this agent prints out the time at GC start and finish with a higher resolution than the verbose GC on the Sun JVM.

#include <stdlib.h>
#include <time.h>
#include <sys/time.h>
#include "jvmti.h"

void printGCTime(const char* type) {

  struct timeval tv;
  gettimeofday(&tv, NULL);

  struct tm localTime;
  localtime_r(&tv.tv_sec, &localTime);

  char *startTime = calloc(1, 128);

  strftime(startTime, (size_t) 128, "%a %b %d %Y %H:%M:%S", &localTime);

  fprintf(stderr, "GC %s: %s.%06d\n", type, startTime, (int)tv.tv_usec );
  fflush(stderr);

  if(startTime) free(startTime);

}

void JNICALL
garbageCollectionStart(jvmtiEnv *jvmti_env) {

  printGCTime("Start ");

}

void JNICALL
garbageCollectionFinish(jvmtiEnv *jvmti_env) {

  printGCTime("Finish");

}


JNIEXPORT jint JNICALL
Agent_OnLoad(JavaVM * jvm, char *options, void *reserved)
{
  jvmtiEnv *jvmti_env;

  jint returnCode = (*jvm)->GetEnv(jvm, (void **) &jvmti_env,
      JVMTI_VERSION_1_0);



  if (returnCode != JNI_OK)
    {
      fprintf(stderr,
          "The version of JVMTI requested (1.0) is not supported by this JVM.\n");
      return JVMTI_ERROR_UNSUPPORTED_VERSION;
    }


  jvmtiCapabilities *requiredCapabilities;

  requiredCapabilities = (jvmtiCapabilities*) calloc(1, sizeof(jvmtiCapabilities));
  if (!requiredCapabilities)
      {
        fprintf(stderr, "Unable to allocate memory\n");
        return JVMTI_ERROR_OUT_OF_MEMORY;
      }

  requiredCapabilities->can_generate_garbage_collection_events = 1;

  if (returnCode != JNI_OK)
    {
      fprintf(stderr, "C:\tJVM does not have the required capabilities (%d)\n",
          returnCode);
      exit(-1);
    }



  returnCode = (*jvmti_env)->AddCapabilities(jvmti_env, requiredCapabilities);


  jvmtiEventCallbacks *eventCallbacks;

  eventCallbacks = calloc(1, sizeof(jvmtiEventCallbacks));
  if (!eventCallbacks)
    {
      fprintf(stderr, "Unable to allocate memory\n");
      return JVMTI_ERROR_OUT_OF_MEMORY;
    }

  eventCallbacks->GarbageCollectionStart = &garbageCollectionStart;
  eventCallbacks->GarbageCollectionFinish = &garbageCollectionFinish;


  returnCode = (*jvmti_env)->SetEventCallbacks(jvmti_env,
      eventCallbacks, (jint) sizeof(*eventCallbacks));


  if (returnCode != JNI_OK)
    {
      fprintf(stderr, "C:\tError setting event callbacks (%d)\n",
          returnCode);
      exit(-1);
    }

  returnCode = (*jvmti_env)->SetEventNotificationMode(
      jvmti_env, JVMTI_ENABLE, JVMTI_EVENT_GARBAGE_COLLECTION_START, (jthread) NULL);

  if (returnCode != JNI_OK)
    {
      fprintf(
          stderr,
          "C:\tJVM does not have the required capabilities, JVMTI_ENABLE, JVMTI_EVENT_GARBAGE_COLLECTION_START (%d)\n",
          returnCode);
      exit(-1);
    }


  returnCode = (*jvmti_env)->SetEventNotificationMode(
      jvmti_env, JVMTI_ENABLE, JVMTI_EVENT_GARBAGE_COLLECTION_FINISH, (jthread) NULL);

  if (returnCode != JNI_OK)
    {
      fprintf(
          stderr,
          "C:\tJVM does not have the required capabilities, JVMTI_ENABLE, JVMTI_EVENT_GARBAGE_COLLECTION_FINISH (%d)\n",
          returnCode);
      exit(-1);
    }


  if(requiredCapabilities) free(requiredCapabilities);
  if(eventCallbacks) free(eventCallbacks);

  return JVMTI_ERROR_NONE;
}

Answer 3

There is no standard way for your own program to get information from the JVM about garbage collection. Any such API is vendor specific.

Why is the facility you found insufficient?

Answer 4

It looks like you could use the MemoryPoolMXBean and set the collection usage threshold to 1. This should give you a notification any time the gc runs and there is still at least a byte of memory in use.

http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.5.0/docs/api/java/lang/management/MemoryPoolMXBean.html

It looks like this doesn't work with all garbage collectors, though.

Answer 5

Java code sample using the GarbageCollectorMXBean referred to in the accepted answer:

static
{
    // notification listener. is notified whenever a gc finishes.
    NotificationListener notificationListener = new NotificationListener()
    {
        @Override
        public void handleNotification(Notification notification,Object handback)
        {
            if (notification.getType().equals(GarbageCollectionNotificationInfo.GARBAGE_COLLECTION_NOTIFICATION))
            {
                // extract garbage collection information from notification.
                GarbageCollectionNotificationInfo gcInfo = GarbageCollectionNotificationInfo.from((CompositeData) notification.getUserData());

                // access garbage collection information...
            }
        }
    };

    // register our listener with all gc beans
    for (GarbageCollectorMXBean gcBean : ManagementFactory.getGarbageCollectorMXBeans())
    {
        NotificationEmitter emitter = (NotificationEmitter) gcBean;
        emitter.addNotificationListener(notificationListener,null,null);
    }
}

site that has detailed sample code that uses the GarbageCollectorMXBean.

Answer 6

I know this is very late but I hope it might help someone someday.

You can receive such events this by using the using the library that i am developing called gcRadar. It provides information about exactly when an object was garbage collected.

Any suggestions for improvements in the library are welcome.