My experience is that Java requires about twice as much RAM compared to C (comparing char arrays or other comparisons). I also read in a hardware book that Java takes about twice RAM than C. Is is based solely on empirical evidence or also has a theoretical explanation? Is there a theoretical limit that limits Java from minimizing its memory usage?
asked Jun 8, 2014 at 0:12
1 Answer
Typically they don't (I know, I know) as an array of primitive types are allocated in the same way as C arrays - contiguous blocks of memory for each item. However, an array of objects is a bit different as you get an array of pointers that reference the java objects. C would allocate a contiguous block of memory to hold the actual objects.
A char in Java is 2 bytes though, maybe this is what you're noticing (or if you end up with wrappered types - a char that is retrieved from a JDK method might require wrapping in which case it takes up 16 bytes), or maybe you're noticing that Java arrays take up 12 bytes just to get started, and then are rounded off to the nearest memory alignment block (ie 8 bytes)
See an overview of memory saving techniques in Java.
16 bytes per char in Java if you're not very careful.. ouch.
[]arrays? orArrayList()arrays? What types of objects do you have in them? How do you produce the results of the memory usage?