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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-05-24T20:08:11+00:00

In Java profiling, it seems like all (free) roads nowadays lead to the VisualVM

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In Java profiling, it seems like all (free) roads nowadays lead to the VisualVM profiler included with JDK6. It looks like a fine program, and everyone touts how you can “attach it to a running process” as a major feature. The problem is, that seems to be the only way to use it on a local process. I want to be able to start my program in the profiler, and track its entire execution.

I have tried using the -Xrunjdwp option described in how to profile application startup with visualvm, but between the two transport methods (shared memory and server), neither is useful for me. VisualVM doesn’t seem to have any integration with the former, and VisualVM refuses to connect to localhost or 127.0.0.1, so the latter is no good either. I also tried inserting a simple read of System.in into my program to insert a pause in execution, but in that case VisualVM blocks until the read completes, and doesn’t allow you to start profiling until after execution is under way. I have also tried looking into the Eclipse plugin but the website is full of dead links and the launcher just crashes with a NullPointerException when I try to use it (this may no longer be accurate).

Coming from C, this doesn’t seem like a particularly difficult task to me. Am I just missing something or is this really an impossible request? I’m open to any kinds of suggestions, including using a different (also free) profiler, and I’m not averse to the command line.

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  1. Editorial Team

    Consider using HPROF and opening the data file with a tool like HPjmeter – or just reading the resulting text file in your favorite editor.

    Command used: javac -J-agentlib:hprof=heap=sites Hello.java

SITES BEGIN (ordered by live bytes) Fri Oct 22 11:52:24 2004
          percent          live          alloc'ed  stack class  rank   self  accum     bytes objs     bytes  objs trace name
    1 44.73% 44.73%   1161280 14516  1161280 14516 302032 java.util.zip.ZipEntry
    2  8.95% 53.67%    232256 14516   232256 14516 302033 com.sun.tools.javac.util.List
    3  5.06% 58.74%    131504    2    131504     2 301029 com.sun.tools.javac.util.Name[]
    4  5.05% 63.79%    131088    1    131088     1 301030 byte[]
    5  5.05% 68.84%    131072    1    131072     1 301710 byte[]

    HPROF is capable of presenting CPU usage, heap allocation statistics,
    and monitor contention profiles. In addition, it can also report
    complete heap dumps and states of all the monitors and threads in the
    Java virtual machine.

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