RFR: 8356848: Separate Metaspace and GC printing

Joel Sikström jsikstro at openjdk.org
Tue May 13 14:20:32 UTC 2025


Hello,

The goal of this RFE is to separate Metaspace printing from GC printing. The main reason Metaspace and GC printing is coupled the way it is right now is because historically, the permanent generation (PermGen), which was replaced by Metaspace, was part of the GC heap. Hence, it made sense to also print info about the PermGen when printing the GC heap.

With Metaspace replacing the PermGen, which uses memory that is separate from the GC heap, the coupling has become more loose, raising the question if Metaspace should be printed somewhere else (maybe when printing *other* Metaspace stuff?). A reason to still print Metaspace when printing the heap is that the GC is responsible for unloading classes and nmethods, which means it makes sense to print Metaspace information in connection to when a GC is performed.

To better reflect the current state of the JVM, I propse we make the following changes to separate Metaspace from GC printing:
* Move Metaspace printing from HeapInfoDCmd to MetaspaceDCmd.
* Move Metaspace printing from the "Heap:" section to "Metaspace:" section in vmError.cpp (hs_err files, the VM.info jcmd and -XX:+PrintVMInfoAtExit).
* Use gc+exit instead of gc+heap+exit as tags for the LogTarget during exit printing to reflect that it's not only the heap being printed.
* And the largest change in terms of LOC, separate Metaspace and GC Heap in the periodic printing before/after GC invocation(s). The periodic printing is also recorded in a ring buffer, which is printed in vmError.cpp.

Testing:
* GHA, Oracle's tier 1-4
* Manuel inspection of printed content

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Commit messages:
 - 8356848: Separate Metaspace and GC printing

Changes: https://git.openjdk.org/jdk/pull/25214/files
  Webrev: https://webrevs.openjdk.org/?repo=jdk&pr=25214&range=00
  Issue: https://bugs.openjdk.org/browse/JDK-8356848
  Stats: 138 lines in 14 files changed: 52 ins; 32 del; 54 mod
  Patch: https://git.openjdk.org/jdk/pull/25214.diff
  Fetch: git fetch https://git.openjdk.org/jdk.git pull/25214/head:pull/25214

PR: https://git.openjdk.org/jdk/pull/25214


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