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Asian Symposium on Programming Languages and Systems

APLAS 2004: Programming Languages and Systems pp 437–452Cite as

Exploiting Java Objects Behavior for Memory Management and Optimizations

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Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNCS,volume 3302))

Abstract

We study the behavior of Java objects in order to explore potential garbage collection optimization opportunities in Java programs. Our study has led to one probable strategy for using heap buffers effectively through obtaining liveness and type information of objects. To allow examination of the Java memory, we implement a heap profiling tool by instrumenting an existing Java virtual machine. The tool records useful object events during program execution, and groups the objects according to their types. We apply the tool to different benchmarks and analyze the results. We also try to characterize the objects’ behaviors and suggest that memory occupied by certain objects can be reused by other objects, leading to improved performance of the program. We implement a simple prototype to demonstrate the feasibility of the object reuse approach.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Science, The University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam Road, Hong Kong

    Zoe C. H. Yu, Francis C. M. Lau & Cho-Li Wang

Authors
  1. Zoe C. H. Yu
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  2. Francis C. M. Lau
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  3. Cho-Li Wang
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Science, National University of Singapore, Singapore

    Wei-Ngan Chin

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© 2004 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Yu, Z.C.H., Lau, F.C.M., Wang, CL. (2004). Exploiting Java Objects Behavior for Memory Management and Optimizations. In: Chin, WN. (eds) Programming Languages and Systems. APLAS 2004. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 3302. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-30477-7_29

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-30477-7_29

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-23724-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-30477-7

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