How to take a Java heap dump from command line

A heap dump is a great way to analyze a Java program in search of memory leaks. I mostly use Eclipse Memory analyzer for such an analysis. It is possible to acquire a heap dump from inside Eclipse Memory analyzer. But it may not always be possible to run a GUI in a foreign environment.

Use jps to find out the process id

C:\>jps
11448 MyLeakingApplication
12084 Jps

Use jmap to acquire the dump

C:\>jmap -dump:format=b,file=c:\Temp\mymemorydump.hprof 11448
Dumping heap to C:\Temp\mymemorydump.hprof ...
Heap dump file created