Java Simon - Simple Monitors for Java

Java Simon is a simple monitoring API that allows you to follow and better understand your application. Monitors (familiarly called Simons) are placed directly into your code and you can choose whether you want to count something or measure time/duration.

• Current version: 4.2.0 (October 2019, requires Java 8) Javadoc
• Previous version: 4.1.4 (March 2018, requires Java 7) Javadoc
• History of releases
• License: New BSD License

Getting started

Easiest way to start with Java Simon is to add Maven dependencies into your Maven project.

A monitors in Java Simon is called "Simon". There are two types of Simons available: Counter and Stopwatch. Counter tracks single long value, its maximum and minimum. Stopwatch measures time and tracks number of measurements (splits), total time, split minimum and maximum, etc.

Simon Manager

You obtain Simons from the SimonManager:

Stopwatch stopwatch = SimonManager.getStopwatch("org.javasimon.examples.HelloWorld-stopwatch");

Here we obtained stopwatch Simon. If the Simon is accessed first time it is created. If you access existing Simon, type of the Simon must match - you can't create counter with the same name (unless you destroy the Simon first).

Stopwatch

Using stopwatch is simple:

Split split = stopwatch.start(); // returns split object
// here goes the measured code
long time = split.stop(); // returns the split time in ns

After few runs of your measured code you can get additional information from stopwatch:

long totalNanos = stopwatch.getTotal();
long maxSplit = stopwatch.getMax();
long minSplit = stopwatch.getMin();

You can use convenient utility to print the results (note ns/us/ms/s unit after the number):

System.out.println("Total time: " + SimonUtils.presentNanoTime(totalNanos));

Or simply print the Simon itself, it has nice toString output.

For more check other Resources (lower), or longer Getting Started, or our Javadoc, that actually contains something on the overview page (under package list).

Resources

Project is hosted on GitHub, these are related pages:

• Javadoc API: http://virgo47.github.io/docs/javasimon/api/4.1/
• Ohloh page: http://www.ohloh.net/p/javasimon
• JavaSimon on Google+: https://plus.google.com/b/115141838919870730025/115141838919870730025

Why Java Simon?

Back in 2008 we wanted to use something like JAMon for our products originally, but we missed two important features:

• better way (or any way for that matter) to organize all those monitors;
• nanosecond resolution.

Simon API gives you better control over all those monitors in your big - possibly Java EE - application. Simons are organized in a hierarchy similar to what you can see in virtually any logging API.

Simons can be disabled which minimizes their overhead influencing your application. These operations can be performed on the whole subtrees of Simons which makes partial application monitoring easier. See Simon Hierarchy for more.

Simon measures times in nanos - and since 2008 nanos have been getting better with every OS and JDK release. Believe it or not it can make the difference on current very fast machines. See SystemTimersGranularity page for more.

Wanna contribute?

OK, this is the tricky one. Over the years the project got bigger and there are even parts I don't know properly. That's why I decided that I'll downsize the core project and leave only core, jdbc, javaee and spring in it. Console and demo application will be developed as separate companion projects (but will be retained in the project as-are until that happens).

But feel free to fork, suggest your patches, file an issues, etc. Please, check our Development guide.

Wanna tell us something?

So tell us! Visit our Google Group or file an issue here on GitHub, whatever. We can't promise to fulfill all your dreams but we want to produce the library YOU like (and so do we - of course ;-)). So if you know how to make Simon better, without making it something it is not, let us know! We want to know.

Java Simon name

Java Simon is the official name of the project with Simple Monitoring API as a subtitle. Codename of the project is javasimon. We use word Simon as a synonym for a "monitor" in javadoc or on our wiki

• of course we use it only for monitors based on the API. We write Simon mostly with capital S, Java Simon with space and javasimon as a one word with all lowercase. Word javasimon is probably best to use in search engines.