FULL PRODUCT VERSION :
tested on jre 1.6_10

ADDITIONAL OS VERSION INFORMATION :
Windows Vista 64Bit business..

though problem seems to appear on more os

A DESCRIPTION OF THE PROBLEM :
On using FileSystemView.getFiles() to retrieve all children of a directory the used memory shown by the OS rises. Though Heap and non Heap memory shown by jconsole stay the same.


STEPS TO FOLLOW TO REPRODUCE THE PROBLEM :
SSCCE given below ... just run it



EXPECTED VERSUS ACTUAL BEHAVIOR :
EXPECTED -
Simple demo should just print ount current ammount of files on the disc...
And not use much memory.
ACTUAL -
Memory usage of the java process rose by about 200 MiB per minute.

REPRODUCIBILITY :
This bug can be reproduced always.

---------- BEGIN SOURCE ----------

import java.io.File;
import javax.swing.filechooser.FileSystemView;


public class LeakTest {

private static long counter = 0;

private static FileSystemView view = FileSystemView.getFileSystemView();

public static void main(String[] args) throws InterruptedException {

while (true) {
for (File f : File.listRoots()) {
if (f.isDirectory()) {
countFiles(f);
System.out.println("found: "+counter);
}
}
System.out.println("found Total: "+counter);
counter = 0;
Thread.sleep(1000);
}



}

private static void countFiles(File root) {

for (File f :view.getFiles(root, false)) {
if (f.isDirectory()) {
countFiles(f);
} else {
counter++;
}
}
}

}
---------- END SOURCE ----------

CUSTOMER SUBMITTED WORKAROUND :
Not a very good one:
Using the following method gives nearly the same behaviour... though FileSystemViews list files still shows different kind of files as visible then File.isHidden()
i.e. $Recycle.bin on Windows

private static File[] getFiles(File parent,boolean useHidden) {
File[] files = parent.listFiles();
if (files == null) return new File[0];

if (useHidden) {
int length = files.length;
for (int i = 0; i < length; i++) {
if (files[i].isHidden()) {
length--;
System.arraycopy(files, i+1, files, i, length-i );
}
}
if (length != files.length) {
File[] onlyVisible = new File[length];
System.arraycopy(files, 0, onlyVisible, 0, length);
return onlyVisible;
}
}
return files;

}