After answering to a question about how to force-free objects in Java (the guy was clearing a 1.5GB HashMap) with System.gc(), I've been told it's a bad practice to call System.gc() manually, but the comments seemed mitigated about it. So much that no one dared to upvote it, nor downvote it.
I've been told there it's a bad practice, but then I've also been told garbage collector runs don't systematically stop the world anymore, and that it could also be only seen as a hint, so I'm kind of at loss.
I do understand that usually the JVM knows better than you when it needs to reclaim memory. I also understand that worrying about a few kilobytes of data is silly. And I also understand that even megabytes of data isn't what it was a few years back. But still, 1.5 gigabyte? And you know there's like 1.5 GB of data hanging around in memory; it's not like it's a shot in the dark. Is System.gc() systematically bad, or is there some point at which it becomes okay?
So the question is actually double:
Why is it or not a bad practice to call System.gc()? Is it really a hint under certain implementations, or is it always a full collection cycle? Are there really garbage collector implementations that can do their work without stopping the world? Please shed some light over the various assertions people have made.
Where's the threshold? Is it never a good idea to call System.gc(), or are there times when it's acceptable? If any, what are those times?
