• a single root
  Only a single garbage collector root will be found. When searching for a memory leak, this option is often appropriate since any path to a garbage collector root will prevent the instance from being garbage collected.
• up to a certain number of roots
  A specified maximum number of roots will be found and displayed. If a single root is not sufficient, try displaying one root more at a time until you get a useful result.
• all roots
  All paths to garbage collector roots will be found and displayed. This analysis takes much longer than the single root option and can us a lot of memory.

By default, the path to root search does not follow weak references. If you would like to show garbage collector roots that are only reachable through a weak reference, you can check the Include weak references option.

By default the path to root search uses classes as garbage collector roots. This is not strictly correct but valid in most situations and makes the path to root search much more usable. For example, a static field of a class is technically not a garbage collector root, but in practice any information about why a class is not garbage collected is not interesting. The only case were you need a different behavior is when searching for classloader-related memory leaks. In that case, you can deselect "Use classes as roots" to use the true garbage collector roots exclusively.

After completing the dialog with the [OK] button, the analysis will be calculated and the result will be shown in the reference graph.

With the [Cancel] button, the path to root option dialog is closed and no analysis is performed.