Re: confused about Runtime.freeMemory()

Hello,

according to the JavaDocs Runtime.freeMemory() should report the size of
the free memory, but is this not affected by the -Xmx parameter. When I
run the following program:

public class Memory
{
  public static void main(String[] args)
  {
    System.out.println(Runtime.getRuntime().freeMemory());
  }
}

it prints the same amount regardless of the -Xmx parameter value:

java Memory --> 1850616
java -Xmx512m Memory --> 1850616

It seems always to report something around 2-4 MB (either JDK 1.5 or JDK
1.6)

When I use maxMemory() - totalMemory() this does seem to reflect the
current heap size a lot closer.

What am I missing here?