Garbage Collection

Garbage collection is the cleanup process that Java uses to get rid of unused objects, freeing associated heap memory. Over time, Java garbage collectors went through many changes, and the historical development of garbage collectors is actually quite interesting. However, a detailed description of ancient garbage collectors is beyond the scope of this book, so this chapter limits its description to the three garbage collectors most often in use—The G1 Garbage Collector, the Shenandoah GC, and the Zero Garbage Collector. The inclined reader can find information about the other garbage collectors on the web.