NetBeans IDE 6.7 Released
The NetBeans IDE 6.7 has been released at http://www.netbeans.org. News in this release are listed in NetBeans IDE 6.7 Release Information, release notes are available here.
The profiler enhances heap analysis capabilities by supporting the OQL scripting in the HeapWalker (hit F1 in the OQL Console to get a detailed help), computing retained sizes for each instance on the heap and listing first N largest objects by retained size. The Overview tab introduces information about number of objects pending for finalization and thread call stacks at the heap dump if available.
The other major profiler improvements include support for exporting profiler results (live results, profiler snapshots, telemetry data) to CSV, HTML and XML and the self-profiling service called "Profile Me Now!" which helps to debug IDE performance problems.
To get a summary information about new profiler features and bugfixes see the NetBeans profiler 6.7 Release Notes.
New Plugin for VisualVM - Buffer Monitor
Buffer Monitor Plugin monitors the resources associated with pools of buffers. Plugin can monitor direct buffers that are allocated outside of the garbage-collected heap (by ByteBuffer.allocateDirect), and memory-mapped buffers, created by mapping a region of a file into memory (using FileChannel.map). The plugin uses newly added java.nio.BufferPoolMXBean to monitor the buffers usage. BufferPoolMXBean is available only in JDK 7 (build 36 and newer), so if you want to use this plugin, your monitored application must run on the latest JDK 7 build available here. More details about buffer pools monitoring are available in Alan Bateman's blog. The plugin is available at VisualVM 1.1.1 plugin center.
Java VisualVM Now Available in Mac OS X
Apple released Java VisualVM as part of Java for Mac OS X 10.5 Update 4. To launch Java VisualVM, run jvisualvm from the command line. This Java update is available via Software Update and manual download from http://support.apple.com/downloads/Java_for_Mac_OS_X_10_5_Update_4.
There is Getting Started with VisualVM for those those who want to get more information about the tool.
JavaOne 2009 Slides: Monitoring and Troubleshooting Java Platform Applications with JDK Software
On June 3rd there was a "Monitoring and Troubleshooting Java™ Platform Applications with JDK™ Software" (BOF-4724) session held at JavaOne 2009. The presentation mentioned monitoring and troubleshooting tools available in JDK, several demos presented how typical problems of Java applications can be detected and debugged using the VisualVM tool. Many attendees requested the slides to be made available online, many others who didn't make it to JavaOne this year may be interested in the contents. Click the image below to get the slides:
You may also download the sources for presentation demos, the NetBeans project archive is available here.
Exporting Data From Profiler
Until NetBeans 6.7M3 the only way data could be exported from profiler was through profiler snapshot (.nps). The catch is, that profiler snapshot can't be opened by external applications like spreadsheet or browser. For this reason we decided to add ability to export data to other formats:
- CSV - For analysis in spreadsheet
- XML - For automated analysis
- HTML - For quick and easy visualization in browser
The feature is available for both live results and snapshot for CPU and Memory profiling. In addition the raw data for VM Telemetry graphs can be exported too. It is accessible through the “Export to...” button in toolbar of each view.
Note that for all snapshots the profiler snapshot file (.nps) is always the default choice so there is no need to change workflow in case this feature is not interesting for you.
