I have created a test Java program to help understand how the G1GC works.
My program has two threads - one loads a large ArrayList with about 200MB of objects (just 1000 character strings) and then it removes an element and adds an element in a loop with a sleep in it. The idea here it to have something that ages slowly and will end up in Tenured.
The other thread just creates a large string in a while loop to create lots of garbage to cause GC runs.
This all seems to work OK, but what I am confused about is that the waste in tenured seems to get cleaned with no mixed GCs running.
[Eden: 581.0M(581.0M)->0.0B(573.0M) Survivors: 9216.0K->9216.0K Heap: 904.3M(1024.0M)->330.9M(1024.0M)]
[Times: user=0.03 sys=0.00, real=0.00 secs]
2017-09-28T16:22:14.889+0000: 2.415: 2017-09-28T16:22:14.889+0000[GC concurrent-root-region-scan-start]
: 2.415: Total time for which application threads were stopped: 0.0081917 seconds, Stopping threads took: 0.0000852 seconds
2017-09-28T16:22:14.889+0000: 2.415: [GC concurrent-root-region-scan-end, 0.0002779 secs]
2017-09-28T16:22:14.889+0000: 2.415: [GC concurrent-mark-start]
2017-09-28T16:22:14.904+0000: 2.430: [GC concurrent-mark-end, 0.0143310 secs]
2017-09-28T16:22:14.905+0000: 2.431: [GC remark 2017-09-28T16:22:14.905+0000: 2.431: [Finalize Marking, 0.0003653 secs] 2017-09-28T16:22:14.905+0000: 2.431: [GC ref-proc2017-09-28T16:22:14.905+0000: 2.431: [SoftReference, 0 refs, 0.0008964 secs]2017-09-28T16:22:14.906+0000: 2.432: [WeakReference, 0 refs, 0.0005380 secs]2017-09-28T16:22:14.907+0000: 2.433: [FinalReference, 2 refs, 0.0005460 secs]2017-09-28T16:22:14.907+0000: 2.434: [PhantomReference, 0 refs, 0 refs, 0.0010243 secs]2017-09-28T16:22:14.908+0000: 2.435: [JNI Weak Reference, 0.0000090 secs], 0.0034419 secs] 2017-09-28T16:22:14.909+0000: 2.435: [Unloading, 0.0008396 secs], 0.0057362 secs]
[Times: user=0.03 sys=0.00, real=0.01 secs]
2017-09-28T16:22:14.911+0000: 2.437: Total time for which application threads were stopped: 0.0069810 seconds, Stopping threads took: 0.0011536 seconds
2017-09-28T16:22:14.911+0000: 2.437: [GC cleanup 418M->302M(1024M), 0.0014100 secs]
[Times: user=0.00 sys=0.00, real=0.00 secs]
2017-09-28T16:22:14.912+0000: 2.438: Total time for which application threads were stopped: 0.0015190 seconds, Stopping threads took: 0.0000697 seconds
2017-09-28T16:22:14.912+0000: 2.438: [GC concurrent-cleanup-start]
2017-09-28T16:22:14.912+0000: 2.439: [GC concurrent-cleanup-end, 0.0000987 secs]
2017-09-28T16:22:14.987+0000: 2.513: [GC pause (G1 Evacuation Pause) (young) 2.513: [G1Ergonomics (CSet Construction) start choosing CSet, _pending_cards: 4816, predicted base time: 5.38 ms, remaining time: 44.62 ms, target pause time: 50.00 ms]
2.513: [G1Ergonomics (CSet Construction) add young regions to CSet, eden: 573 regions, survivors: 9 regions, predicted young region time: 3.54 ms]
2.513: [G1Ergonomics (CSet Construction) finish choosing CSet, eden: 573 regions, survivors: 9 regions, old: 0 regions, predicted pause time: 8.92 ms, target pause time: 50.00 ms]
2017-09-28T16:22:14.991+0000: 2.517: [SoftReference, 0 refs, 0.0010742 secs]2017-09-28T16:22:14.992+0000: 2.518: [WeakReference, 0 refs, 0.0006150 secs]2017-09-28T16:22:14.992+0000: 2.519: [FinalReference, 0 refs, 0.0004760 secs]2017-09-28T16:22:14.993+0000: 2.519: [PhantomReference, 0 refs, 0 refs, 0.0008707 secs]2017-09-28T16:22:14.994+0000: 2.520: [JNI Weak Reference, 0.0000094 secs] 2.521: [G1Ergonomics (Mixed GCs) do not start mixed GCs, reason: reclaimable percentage not over threshold, candidate old regions: 14 regions, reclaimable: 13071400 bytes (1.22 %), threshold: 5.00 %]
, 0.0077749 secs]
[Parallel Time: 3.6 ms, GC Workers: 16]
[GC Worker Start (ms): Min: 2513.1, Avg: 2513.6, Max: 2515.2, Diff: 2.1]
[Ext Root Scanning (ms): Min: 0.0, Avg: 0.1, Max: 0.2, Diff: 0.1, Sum: 0.9]
[Update RS (ms): Min: 0.0, Avg: 0.4, Max: 1.1, Diff: 1.1, Sum: 6.3]
[Processed Buffers: Min: 0, Avg: 1.2, Max: 4, Diff: 4, Sum: 20]
[Scan RS (ms): Min: 0.0, Avg: 0.0, Max: 0.1, Diff: 0.1, Sum: 0.8]
[Code Root Scanning (ms): Min: 0.0, Avg: 0.0, Max: 0.0, Diff: 0.0, Sum: 0.1]
[Object Copy (ms): Min: 1.2, Avg: 2.3, Max: 2.9, Diff: 1.7, Sum: 36.9]
[Termination (ms): Min: 0.0, Avg: 0.1, Max: 0.2, Diff: 0.2, Sum: 2.1]
[Termination Attempts: Min: 1, Avg: 1.1, Max: 2, Diff: 1, Sum: 18]
[GC Worker Other (ms): Min: 0.0, Avg: 0.0, Max: 0.1, Diff: 0.0, Sum: 0.3]
[GC Worker Total (ms): Min: 1.4, Avg: 3.0, Max: 3.5, Diff: 2.1, Sum: 47.3]
[GC Worker End (ms): Min: 2516.5, Avg: 2516.6, Max: 2516.6, Diff: 0.1]
[Code Root Fixup: 0.0 ms]
[Code Root Purge: 0.0 ms]
[Clear CT: 0.2 ms]
[Other: 4.0 ms]
[Choose CSet: 0.0 ms]
[Ref Proc: 3.4 ms]
[Ref Enq: 0.2 ms]
[Redirty Cards: 0.1 ms]
[Humongous Register: 0.0 ms]
[Humongous Reclaim: 0.0 ms]
[Free CSet: 0.2 ms]
[Eden: 573.0M(573.0M)->0.0B(607.0M) Survivors: 9216.0K->7168.0K Heap: 787.9M(1024.0M)->221.4M(1024.0M)]
This is a snippet of the GC log. Note that between this run:
[Eden: 581.0M(581.0M)->0.0B(573.0M) Survivors: 9216.0K->9216.0K Heap: 904.3M(1024.0M)->330.9M(1024.0M)]
...
[Eden: 573.0M(573.0M)->0.0B(607.0M) Survivors: 9216.0K->7168.0K Heap: 787.9M(1024.0M)->221.4M(1024.0M)]
So the usage in Tenured seems to have shrank on this run. However, there is no mention of a mixed GC, infact all it gives is:
[G1Ergonomics (Mixed GCs) do not start mixed GCs, reason: reclaimable percentage not over threshold, candidate old regions: 14 regions, reclaimable: 13071400 bytes (1.22 %), threshold: 5.00 %]
So my question is - how is the tenured space getting cleaned without a mixed (or a full) GC happening?
