About the location of data structure and its inner objects

[Thomas Schatzl]

Hi Xu,

On Mon, 2013-08-26 at 16:20 +0800, Lijie Xu wrote:
> Hi, folks. I’m confused with the concrete locations of the data
> structure and its inner objects in the heap. The questions are below.
>
> A general question: 
>
> If an object X is decided to be copied into old from new gen by GC,
> all the objects which can be reached from X are copied into old too.
> Or X’s retained set. Or this statement is wrong.
>

The Hotspot GCs only guarantee that a single object is in a particular
generation. An object graph may span multiple generations.  

> Two concrete questions.
>
>Q1: Can an array such as byte[], String[] and Object[] span two
>generations?

No, the array itself is a single object, so it cannot span multiple
generations.
> 
> I think primitive arrays such as byte[] and int[] cannot span (e.g., a
> part of the array exists in eden and the other part exists in old
> space). For reference arrays such as Object[], the array itself cannot
> span but the items in the arrays can span (i.e., some items exist in
> new gen while others exist in old gen). I’m not sure if I’m right and
> if String[] is as same as byte[].

String[] is the same as an Object[].
> 
> Q2: Can ArrayList, LinkedList, HashMap span two generations?
>

The separate objects cannot, the data structure with all its contents
may span multiple generations.

I.e. an ArrayList consists of (don't nail me on that) the ArrayList
object itself, the object array object, and the referenced objects.

So the ArrayList, the object array, and the referenced objects each will
not span generations. However the parts themselves may be located in
different generations.

Hth,
  Thomas