Method Area Growth with Dynamically Generated Classes

This section provides a tutorial example on how to force the Method Area to grow by creating classes dynamically with the Code Generation Library (CGLIB).

Another simple way to force the Method Area run out of memory is to create lots of new classes dynamically at the runtime. Here is a sample program provided by chaofanwei with some minor modifications:

/* MethodAreaDynamicClass.java
 * Based on a sample program from chaofanwei at
 * http://blog.csdn.net/chaofanwei/article/details/19483101
 */
import java.lang.reflect.Method;  
import net.sf.cglib.proxy.Enhancer;  
import net.sf.cglib.proxy.MethodInterceptor;  
import net.sf.cglib.proxy.MethodProxy;  
public class MethodAreaDynamicClass {  
   public static void main(String[] args) {  
      while (true) {  
         Enhancer enhancer = new Enhancer();  
         enhancer.setSuperclass(OOMObject.class);  
         enhancer.setUseCache(false);  
         enhancer.setCallback(new MethodInterceptor() {  
            @Override  
            public Object intercept
               (Object o, Method m, Object[] a, MethodProxy p)
               throws Throwable {  
               return p.invokeSuper(o,a);  
            }  
         });  
         enhancer.create();  
      }  
   }  
   static class OOMObject {  
   }  
}

This programs the Code Generation Library (CGLIB) to run. So you need to download cglib-nodep-3.1.jar from http://sourceforge.net/projects/cglib/ to compile and run:

C:\herong>\progra~1\java\jdk1.8.0\bin\javac 
   -classpath cglib-nodep-3.1.jar MethodAreaDynamicClass.java

C:\herong>\progra~1\java\jdk1.8.0\bin\java 
   -classpath cglib-nodep-3.1.jar;. MethodAreaDynamicClass

Then go immediately to another command window to start "jconsole" to connect the MethodAreaDynamicClass process:

C:\herong>\progra~1\java\jdk1.8.0\bin\jps
10072 Jps
2860 MethodAreaDynamicClass

C:\herong>\progra~1\java\jdk1.8.0\bin\jconsole 2860

Now enjoy watching graphs on the growth of number of classes loaded, heap memory usage, and memory pool of "Metaspace". You can also check the growth of the JVM footprint using the "tasklist" command.

The following picture shows you the classes and Heap memory usage:
Dynamically Generated Classes and Heap

And the picture below shows you the Method Area (Metaspace) growth:
Dynamically Generated Classes and Metaspace

See the next section on the end result of the test.

Last update: 2014.

Table of Contents

 About This Book

 Downloading and Installing JDK 1.8.0 on Windows

 Downloading and Installing JDK 1.7.0 on Windows

 java.lang.Runtime Class - The JVM Instance

 java.lang.System Class - The Operating System

 ClassLoader Class - Class Loaders

 Class Class - Class Reflections

 Sun's JVM - Java HotSpot VM

 JRockit JVM 28.2.7 by Oracle Corporation

JVM Runtime Data Areas

 What Are Runtime Data Areas?

 Method Area Expansion Demonstration

 OutOfMemoryError on the Method Area

Method Area Growth with Dynamically Generated Classes

 Garbage Collection Issue with Dynamically Generated Classes

 Interned Strings Stored in Heap

 Heap Expansion Demonstration

 Direct Memory Expansion Demonstration

 allocateMemory() Method on Direct Memory

 JVM Stack Expansion Demonstration

 PC Register and Native Method Stack

 Memory Management and Garbage Collectors

 Garbage Collection Tests

 JVM Stack, Frame and Stack Overflow

 Thread Testing Program and Result

 CPU Impact of Multi-Thread Applications

 I/O Impact of Multi-Thread Applications

 CDS (Class Data Sharing)

 Micro Benchmark Runner and JVM Options

 Micro Benchmark Tests on "int" Operations

 Micro Benchmark Tests on "long" Operations

 Micro Benchmark Tests in JIT Compilation Mode

 Micro Benchmark Tests on "float" and "double" Operations

 Outdated Tutorials

 References

 PDF Printing Version