How to force garbage collection in Java?

Question

Is it possible to force garbage collection in Java, even if it is tricky to do? I know about System.gc(); and Runtime.gc(); but they only suggest t

Answer 1

If you are running out of memory and getting an OutOfMemoryException you can try increasing the amount of heap space available to java by starting you program with java -Xms128m -Xmx512m instead of just java. This will give you an initial heap size of 128Mb and a maximum of 512Mb, which is far more than the standard 32Mb/128Mb.