Java Garbage Collection Process

Garbage collection is the process of reclaiming the unused memory space and making it available for the future instances.

EDEN : When an instance is created, it is first stored in the eden space in young generation of heap memory area.

Survivor Space (S0 and S1): As part of the minor garbage collection cycle, objects that are live (which is still referenced) are moved to survivor space S0 from eden space. Similarly the garbage collector scans S0 and moves the live instances to S1.

Instances that are not live (dereferenced) are marked for garbage collection. Depending on the garbage collector  chosen either the marked instances will be removed from memory on the go or the eviction process will be done in a separate process.

Old Generation: Old or tenured generation is the second logical part of the heap memory. When the garbage collector does the minor GC cycle, instances that are still live in the S1 survivor space will be promoted to the old generation. Objects that are dereferenced in the S1 space is marked for eviction.

Major GC: Old generation is the last phase in the instance life cycle with respect to the Java garbage collection process. Major GC is the garbage collection process that scans the old generation part of the heap memory. If instances are dereferenced, then they are marked for eviction and if not they just continue to stay in the old generation.

Memory Fragmentation: Once the instances are deleted from the heap memory the location becomes empty and becomes available for future allocation of live instances. These empty spaces will be fragmented across the memory area. For quicker allocation of the instance it should be defragmented. Based on the choice of the garbage collector, the reclaimed memory area will either be compacted on the go or will be done in a separate pass of the GC.

Finalization of Instances in Garbage Collection

Just before evicting an instance and reclaiming the memory space, the Java garbage collector invokes the finalize() method of the respective instance so that the instance will get a chance to free up any resources held by it. Though there is a guarantee that the finalize() will be invoked before reclaiming the memory space, there is no order or time specified. The order between multiple instances cannot be predetermined, they can even happen in parallel. Programs should not pre-mediate an order between instances and reclaim resources using the finalize() method.

• Any uncaught exception thrown during finalize process is ignored silently and the finalization of that instance is cancelled.
• JVM specification does not discuss about garbage collection with respect to weak references and claims explicitly about it. Details are left to the implementer.
• Garbage collection is done by a daemon thread.

When an object becomes eligible for garbage collection?

• Any instances that cannot be reached by a live thread.
• Circularly referenced instances that cannot be reached by any other instances.