javaparser/javaparser

HERE IS MY QUESTION:

There is a lot of "Memory Leak" whenever I use the class StaticJavaParser. I hope to explain (quickly) that my Java HTML Parsing utility CANNOT BE the source of the major memory leak in my code. I can run an HTML Scrape that parses web-pages for hours and hours, and watch as Web-Pages are downloaded into String's, and parsed in Vector's of HTMLNode's. I have a largely "static" library, where NO INTERNAL STATE is maintained by my code. This means, whenever I call the Java Garbage Collector - 100% of the Parsed HTML Vector's of HTMLNode are fully removed from memory, and the Java Heap is (easily) emptied by an invokation of System.gc(). I print the memory available on the heap to check this often with my NewsSite Scrapers. See a log to watch Memory Consumption using Vector<HTMLNode>:

http://developer.torello.directory/JavaHTML/Version%201/1.6/javadoc/Torello/HTML/Tools/NewsSite/GovCN-ScrapeArticles.html

HOWEVER: When I use class StaticJavaParser to parse a java Source File (".java") file into memory, somewhere and somehow there are cyclic references being maintained on the Java Heap by the class StaticJavaParser. I say this because I have written a build script that uses my HTML Parser for Parsing JavaDoc Generated HTML Pages, and these HTML Pages are updated via the JavaParser class StaticJavaParser to retrieve Method Bodies, Constructor Bodies, and Field Declarations. As I run my Build Script to process well over 300 class (110,000 lines of code and documentation), the amount of memory on the Java Heap gets larger and larger and larger. Whenever I invoke System.gc(), the JRE gets slower and slower and slower. My Build Script takes almost 15 minutes to run sometimes, and a huge percentage of the time it is the System.gc() invokation that is causing it to run so slowly.

When class StaticJavaParser builds an Abstract Syntax Tree from a Java Source File - how many references to the AST nodes are maintained by pointers inside the class? If I invoke the following line of code:

CompilationUnit cu = StaticJavaParser.parse(javaSrcFileAsString);
VoidVisitor<?> visit = new HANDLER(ret, javaSrcFileName);

// Call JavaParser, it will use the GETTER class as the "Event Handler"
visit.visit(cu, null);

// Feeble minded attempt to clear out the AST tree, quickly.
// NOTE: This line is not doing anything right now...
NULL_THE_TREE(cu);

Is there any easy way to Garbage Collect an AST Tree after it has been used to retrieve String Information once it has been parsed? Here is my "feeble minded attempt" to clear the AST Tree which is not working:

    private static void NULL_THE_TREE(Node n)
    {
        java.util.List<Node>                    l = n.getChildNodes();
        java.util.stream.Stream.Builder<Node>   b = java.util.stream.Stream.builder();

        l.forEach((Node nChild) -> b.accept(nChild));

        b.build().forEach((Node nChild) -> 
            { try { nChild.removeForced(); NULL_THE_TREE(nChild); } catch (Exception e) { } }
        );
    }

Sorry for the length of this question, I am all ears for answers though... Is there a better version of NULL_THE_TREE(Node n) or perhaps NULL_THE_TREE(CompilationUnit c), so that the Java Garbage Collector can remove the nodes for one source file and move on to the next, without completely restarting my Build Script for each Java Source Code File? Again, I have well over 300 source files. Many of them over a thousand lines long (with Documentation)