Empty loop consuming more memory than non empty loop in java

Question

I was reading up on java performance tuning and ran into this.

When we run

public class test {
public static void main(String a[]){
    for(int i=0;i<1000000;i++){
        for(int j=0;j<100000;j++){
            Double d = new Double(1.0);
        }
    }
}
}

JVisualVM shows a flat for memory consumption graph:

But when we run the below code,

public class test {
public static void main(String a[]){
    for(int i=0;i<1000000;i++){
        for(int j=0;j<100000;j++){
        }
    }
}
}

JVisualVM renders a sawtooth:

Why is this happening? How and why gc triggering limit is changed for both the cases?

Answer 1

Regarding your v1 for loops, your local variable, once it has exited its scope, it will be marked for GC as free to be collected, so every once in a while the GC will kick in and collect that memory.

For your v2 for loops, those empty loops won't be 'optimized away' by the compiler**, only after multiple calls, because the

JIT triggers AFTER a certain piece of code has been executed many times [1]

Regarding your saw tooth pattern, ruakh has a very nice explanation about it [2] :

If I'm not mistaken, part of the reason for this is that the monitor itself is forcing the application to create temporary objects that contain information about the state of garbage-collection and memory usage.

** It is possible that they may never be removed because those empty loops are well known as being used as a waiting mechanism.*

[1] Java: how much time does an empty loop use? - Simone Gianni's answer

[2] Why does an empty Java program consume memory?