Executive Summary

How changing a cfloop from a query loop to an index loop eliminated this application's memory problem

A process in one of our internal tools takes a while to run. In this case, a specific instance was crashing due to Java Heap Space errors. The image on the top shows the heap -- with a snapshot taken while the application was in its death throes -- prior to fixing the problem. The image on the bottom shows the heap -- with a snapshot taken at roughly the same time during the application's run -- after making 2 small code changes. One server is dead; the other is alive. This is our story.

The code, before

This particular process works in two parts that both do the same kind of thing

1. Query another database and fetch around 350k rows. Loop over those rows and "do stuff"
2. Query another database and fetch around 950k rows. Loop over those rows and "do other stuff"

The app was crashing in that second part, right around 770k rows. Here's a snippet:

It's your standard cfloop over a query.

Heap memory, before

Here's what it looked like in Eclipse MAT

As the app was dying, I took a heap dump (described here... it's easy) and saw that a thing called coldfusion.runtime.CFDummyComponent was consuming over 800MB of Ram. Drilling down a few levels, I saw thousands of "coldfusion.tagext.lang.LoopTag". Drilling into one of those, I saw that for each loop tag, there were 5000 coldfusion.sql.imq.Row objects. 5000 because that's how many records we were looping over in that cfloop.

The code, after

After seeing that all of the memory was being consumed inside of loop tags, I looked at the two cfloops that were running. My thought process was something like, "If we're doing a cfloop query='', and if the memory analyzer is telling me that each loop is retaining thousands of objects related to that query, then how can I perform the same loop without giving the query to the loop?" It should come as no surprise that the answer was:

Heap memory, after

As proof that this code change had the intended effect, I ran the app again and took a heap snapshot at roughly the same point. The results were not surprising... not a single "looptag" in sight.

What's more, during the running of the application, retained heap dropped from 882 MB to 52 MB, simply by changing the cfloop style.

Conclusion

I'm not suggesting that you should go change your loops. Here's what I want you to takeaway:

1. When debugging, don't go flailing about, changing code willy nilly. Get proof
2. Try to think creatively about the information you see. In this case, I saw a bunch of loop tags, leading me to ask, "what could be going on with these loops?". Assume nothing
3. Make small changes. Change one thing at a time, run the app, take measurements, and see their effects

I do believe this is a bug. If you agree, please vote .