title: Java Heap Size Reduction
body: <p>BACKGROUND</p>
  
  <p>I recently wrote a java application that consumes a specified amount of MB. I am doing this purposefully to see how another Java application reacts to specific RAM loads (I am sure there are tools for this purpose, but this was the fastest). The memory consumer app is very simple. I enter the number of MB I want to consume and create a vector of that many bytes. I also have a reset button that removes the elements of the vector and prompts for a new number of bytes.</p>
  
  <p>QUESTION</p>
  
  <p>I noticed that the heap size of the java process never reduces once the vector is cleared. I tried clear(), but the heap remains the same size. It seems like the heap grows with the elements, but even though the elements are removed the size remains. Is there a way in java code to reduce heap size? Is there a detail about the java heap that I am missing? I feel like this is an important question because if I wanted to keep a low memory footprint in any java application, I would need a way to keep the heap size from growing or at least not large for long lengths of time.</p>