to compare the memory usage between the use of the static array and java.util.ArrayList in a sorting operation -
runtime rt = runtime.getruntime(); long totalm = rt.totalmemory(); long currentm; int []n = new int[10000]; system.out.print("10000 ints used: "); system.out.println(totalm - rt.freememory()); its not working. cannot use long calculation? thanks in advance, please give me suggestions answering implicit question in title: difference in "memory usage between use of static array , java.util.arraylist in sorting operation". in java 8: none . because sort delegated arraylist class, sorts backing array directly using arrays.sort() . in java 7 , below, list converted array, array sorted, , result put list. so, memory doubled array, plus whatever memory need sorting operation itself, depends on version of java. happens linkedlist in java 8.