Why does the "Calculate exact retained sizes" keep stopping?

Questions about YourKit Java Profiler
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jdahms
Posts: 1
Joined: Fri Aug 01, 2014 8:09 pm

Why does the "Calculate exact retained sizes" keep stopping?

Post by jdahms »

When I click "Calculate exact retained sizes" in the "Class List", it runs for a few seconds and then stops and I have to click "Continue calculation".

What I'd really like to do is click "Calculate exact retained sizes", go for a coffee, and see that it's done when I return. The way the UI works now, I have to stay at my computer and click "Continue calculation" again and again and again and again. In fact on a large heap dump I've clicked it dozens of times and it still doesn't finish.

This strikes me as a very bad UI design. There is already a "Stop" button there. If I wanted the calculation to stop, I'd click stop!

I saw forum posts about this years ago.

Why hasn't it been fixed?
Anton Katilin
Posts: 6172
Joined: Wed Aug 11, 2004 8:37 am

Re: Why does the "Calculate exact retained sizes" keep stopp

Post by Anton Katilin »

It usually makes no sense to calculate exact size for all classes. Instead, only the top few percents are of interest.
If you are interested in the exact size of a particular class you can get it by demand via Quick info.
Clasmir
Posts: 10
Joined: Thu Jun 12, 2014 5:11 pm

Re: Why does the "Calculate exact retained sizes" keep stopp

Post by Clasmir »

You should change the UI for this in two ways:

1) Remove the logic that stops after a certain number.
2) Add feedback that indicates how far it has processed. "Processed 132 of 3081"

In my use case I'm having the retained Size shift the order by significant amounts as I walk through the list, clicking over and over again. Not always, but enough that makes me question whether I should click just one more time to see if something interesting shifts up.

Having the ability to walk away and stop/resume as the OP suggests would be ideal.

Now.. perhaps as I learn more about the product and the REAL significance of this data hits home, I'll realize that it really isn't that important. But that's really not the point. When you are working on usability, you have to take into consideration that users don't have your understanding of what's really important and what's not.

/cheers
Anton Katilin
Posts: 6172
Joined: Wed Aug 11, 2004 8:37 am

Re: Why does the "Calculate exact retained sizes" keep stopp

Post by Anton Katilin »

Hi Clasmir

We think that calculation of exact retained sizes for all classes is nothing but a waste of time, and we do not want to offer users easy tools to do wrong things.

Nevertheless, those who what to do this anyway may use the -Dexact.retained.size.min.count=<minimal count to process> workaround. Please note the new settings file location in my recent comment:
http://forums.yourkit.com/viewtopic.php ... 318#p19876

Best regards,
Anton
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