A master's thesis explores optimizing weak reference processing in ZGC, Java's garbage collector, by addressing the current inefficiency where all weak references undergo the same processing pipeline regardless of whether they use a ReferenceQueue. The research investigates reducing overhead by modifying the pipeline or using alternative representations of weak semantics, potentially improving performance for applications with many weak references.
Background
Java's WeakReference allows holding references to objects without preventing garbage collection, but the current implementation in ZGC processes all weak references uniformly, creating unnecessary overhead for references that don't use the optional ReferenceQueue notification mechanism.
- Source
- Lobsters
- Published
- Jun 14, 2026 at 08:36 PM
- Score
- 7.0 / 10