Java Memory Validator Tutorial

This document is intended to augment the information in the Java Memory Validator Help file. If you have not read the help file we encourage you to do so. Java Memory Validator is a powerful and complex product, reading the help manual will help you use Java Memory Validator more efficiently.

This tutorial describes how to use Java Memory Validator to perform memory leak detection in a Java application.

Java is a garbage collected language. Memory leaks happen using garbage collected languages when references to objects that are no longer required are not released. The failure to release the reference prevents the garbage collector from correctly identifying the memory as garbage and thus prevents the memory from being collected.

This tutorial will show you how to use Java Memory Validator to detect and analyse memory leaks in your Java application using the supplied jmvExample.class application to demonstrate a typical memory leak and the various facilities Java Memory Validator provides you to aid you in the task of identifying and analysing a memory leak.

The tutorial is split into several sections:

• The example application.
• Launching the application.
• Introducing the data views.
• Detecting the memory leak.
• Fixing the memory leak.
• Checking the memory leak is fixed.
• Working with applications started from batch files (Tomcat etc).

If you would like a tutorial on how to use Java Memory Validator to perform a given task, we will be happy to provide a tutorial, just let us know what topics you need the tutorial to cover. Send your suggestions to support@softwareverify.com.