What is Unlock Experimental VM Options: -XX:+UnlockExperimentalVMOptions?

Usage:

• -XX:+UnlockExperimentalVMOptions

Description:

The -XX:+UnlockExperimentalVMOptions flag unlocks experimental JVM features. These features may be unstable and are therefore not available by default,
so this flag is required to make them available.

Using experimental features enabled by this flag is not encouraged in a production
system. They may crash or cause unexpected behaviour. Also the JVM vendor
will not provide support for experimental features.

There are a large number of experimental flags that can be unlocked. The
-XX:+PrintFlagsFinal option does not print experimental flags by default, but
using -XX:+PrintFlagsFinal together with -XX:+UnlockExperimentalVMOptions
causes the experimental flags to be printed. Although the output includes all
flags, the experimental flags are marked with {experimental}, which can be
used as the basis of a search. For example:

java -XX:+UnlockExperimentalVMOptions \
-XX:+PrintFlagsFinal -version | grep {experimental}

An excerpt of the output of this command, when used with Java 11, is as follows:

bool UnlockExperimentalVMOptions = true {experimental} {command line}
bool UseAOT = false {experimental} {default}
bool UseCriticalCMSThreadPriority = false {experimental} {default}
bool UseCriticalCompilerThreadPriority = false {experimental} {default}
bool UseCriticalJavaThreadPriority = false {experimental} {default}
bool UseEpsilonGC = false {experimental} {default}
bool UseFastUnorderedTimeStamps = false {experimental} {default}
bool UseZGC = false {experimental} {default}
uintx WorkStealingHardSpins = 4096 {experimental} {default}
uintx WorkStealingSleepMillis = 1 {experimental} {default}
uintx WorkStealingSpinToYieldRatio = 10 {experimental} {default}
uintx WorkStealingYieldsBeforeSleep = 5000 {experimental} {default}
Note that experimental features may become production features in future
versions of Java. For example the -XX:UseZGC option, which enables the Z
Garbage Collector, is shown as experimental on Java 11 above but is a production
feature on Java 17:
bool UseZGC = false {product} {default}
Conversely, experimental features may be dropped in future Java versions.

Default Value:

-XX:+UnlockExperimentalVMOptions is off by default, i.e. experimental features are not unavailable.

Errors:

Example of using a flag that requires -XX:+UnlockExperimentalVMOptions but
without supplying that flag:

java -XX:+G1MaxNewSizePercent

The output of the above command is:

Error: VM option 'G1MaxNewSizePercent' is experimental and must be
enabled via -XX:+UnlockExperimentalVMOptions.
Error: The unlock option must precede 'G1MaxNewSizePercent'.
Error: Could not create the Java Virtual Machine.
Error: A fatal exception has occurred. Program will exit.

Arguments Related to -XX:+UnlockExperimentalVMOptions

TODO: too many to list individually

Related Posts:

None

NOTE:

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