What is Java Interpreted-Only Mode: -Xint?

Usage:

• -Xint

Description:

The -Xint flag prevents the Hotspot JVM from compiling methods to native
code. All methods are run in interpreted mode only.

The -Xint flag has a negative impact on the performance of an application as
none of the optimisations of running native code are available. Applications
should therefore avoid using -Xint.

There is very rarely any practical need to use this flag. It may be useful to produce
comparative performance benchmarks for interpreted versus JIT-compiled code,
or to debug a JVM crash. For example if a region of application code causes
the JVM to crash repeatably, then running with -Xint could help to determine
whether the crash is caused by the compiled bytecode, or otherwise.

Default Value:

-Xint is off by default.

Errors:

-Xint should not be used with either -Xcomp or -Xmixed because they are
contradictory. However, no error is thrown if two or more of these options are
used. The last parameter on the command line determines the actual mode used.
For example if the following command is run:
java -Xmixed -Xcomp -Xint
then the JVM shall run in interpreted-only mode.

Arguments Related to -Xint:

TODO: link to -Xbatch, -Xcomp, -Xmixed.

NOTE:
If you have additional comments, interesting experiences or even point of disagreement with this JVM argument description, please leave a comment. Your
insights will help the entire 10+ million java developer community to develop
one standard source of documentation for all the JVM arguments.