In Java is Permanent Generation space garbage collected?

Question

I have read that Perm gen (or Permanent Generation) space is not garbage collected. However, in CMS collection I can see some classes unloading in my GC log. So is perm gen garbage collected during full collection or CMS collection?

question from:https://stackoverflow.com/questions/3796427/in-java-is-permanent-generation-space-garbage-collected

Answer 1

The PermGen is garbage collected like the other parts of the heap.

The thing to note here is that the PermGen contains meta-data of the classes and the objects i.e. pointers into the rest of the heap where the objects are allocated. The PermGen also contains Class-loaders which have to be manually destroyed at the end of their use else they stay in memory and also keep holding references to their objects on the heap. The "Presenting the Permanent Generation" article by Jon Masamitsu on the Sun / Oracle blog site might help you.