How to read heap dump file which is created by jconsole?

Question

I performed a heap dump manually by invoking the com.sun.management.HotSpotDiagnostic MXBean's dumpHeap operation in jconsole. So I got a dump file.

My question: Can jconsole read the dump file? If not, which tool can read it? Thanks!

EDIT: Now I know jconsole doesn't provide read feature, I am wondering reason why jconsole only writes dump file without read feature. (This is not my question, I am just curoius about it)

Solution 1

You can use jvisualvm.exe which comes with JDK 1.5 and above. Its present in bin folder of JDK. This is a very good tool which can be used to profile even the running Java applications. You can even use JProfiler to read heap dump files. But this software is licensed.

Solution 2

I found an Eclipse plugin Memory Analyzer to read the dump file by myself. Other tools are still welcome.