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Questions tagged [garbage-collection]

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2
votes
1answer
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delete node from linked list (lang w/GC) -should deleted item 'next' be set to null

Regarding: delete a node from a linked list algorithm,in procedural languages with garbage-collection. Should there be a step in the algorithm, of setting the removed-node-next-pointer to null ? (...
2
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0answers
12 views

Region-based memory management for recursive type

In the chapter 4 of Pierce's TAPL which discusses the implementation of untyped arithmetic expressions, the author said The most important [for the implementation requirements] are automatic ...
0
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0answers
21 views

Distribution of number of references to other object in an object

I been thinking about an improvement to a garbage collector (details not important for this question) and wished to know how often does a object have no reference to other objects. Clearly this will ...
2
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0answers
25 views

Sweeping integrated into memory allocation: Why only fixed size objects?

In our language design book, it is mentioned that GC sweep can be integrated into allocation, such that when you call malloc for example, you sweep until you find a ...
2
votes
2answers
487 views

Is it possible to implement a WeakMap with primitive keys and weak values?

Theory Basically, I have a use-case where I would like to use primitives to store weak references to non-primitive values. If the value is no longer referenced anywhere else, then the entry should be ...
8
votes
2answers
203 views

What would a language look like in which precise GC was implementable as a library?

Suppose you have some programming language with manual memory management. What features does this language need to have in order to be able to implement precise garbage collection as a library, and ...
63
votes
12answers
12k views

Why don't compilers automatically insert deallocations?

In languages like C, the programmer is expected to insert calls to free. Why doesn't the compiler do this automatically? Humans do it in a reasonable amount of time(ignoring bugs), so it is not ...
5
votes
1answer
152 views

What are some possible “functional” memory structures?

With my thin knowledge on embedded systems, compilers, and computer architectures, I know that the basics of computer memory(physical) are sort of like an array, with addressing which work like ...
12
votes
6answers
1k views

Why does garbage collection extend only to memory and not other resource types?

It seems like people got tired of manual memory management, so they invented garbage collection, and life was reasonably good. But what about every other resource types? File descriptors, sockets, ...
9
votes
3answers
346 views

Is reference counting GC vs. tracing GC a language property or an implementation property?

We sometimes hear "Swift doesn't do classic (tracing) GC, it uses ARC." But I'm not sure if there is anything in the Swift semantics that requires reference counting. It seems that one could build ...
4
votes
1answer
85 views

How did MacLisp's garbage collector “run in the register set”?

Olin Shivers, ‘History of T’: Maclisp on the [PDP]-10 had used a mark&sweep GC (one version of which famously "ran in the register set," though that is another story) This implies, in my ...
2
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0answers
78 views

How does the Spark M7 “Concurrent Fine-grain Memory Migration” benefit a garbage collector?

Sun has been making a lot of noise about the Spark M7 and its inbuilt support for the java garbage collector. However there seem to be very little easy to find information about it. Please can ...
23
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4answers
4k views

How do garbage collectors avoid stack overflow?

So I was thinking about how garbage collectors work and I thought of an interesting issue. Presumably garbage collectors have to traverse all structures in the same way. They can't know weather they ...
3
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1answer
106 views

When was the terminology *tracing collector* introduced to denote both mark-and-sweep and copy collectors

Automatic storage reclamation, aka garbage collection, comes in two main families, sometimes cooperating: the reference count collectors and the tracing collectors. I may develop specifics of each ...
28
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7answers
3k views

Why is the object destructor paradigm in garbage collected languages pervasively absent?

Looking for insight into decisions around garbage collected language design. Perhaps a language expert could enlighten me? I come from a C++ background, so this area is baffling to me. It seems ...
5
votes
1answer
209 views

Recent Garbage collection survey paper

Many years ago I read a GC survey paper that was updated every few years with advances; I tried to find such a paper today to point a questioner on Stackoverflow at. However all I can find is very ...
7
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1answer
251 views

Tag-free garbage collection for object oriented languages

I'm looking around for a good garbage collection technique for my language and found this paper, where Benjamin Goldberg describes a garbage collection technique for strongly typed languages, which ...
12
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2answers
488 views

Are there any garbage collectors that take into account paging?

Garbage collections have to visit all objects that are alive, so as to find the memory that can be reclaimed. (Having many generations’ just delays this a bit) All things being equal, it is ...
38
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2answers
2k views

Are generational garbage collectors inherently cache-friendly?

A typical generational garbage collector keeps recently allocated data in a separate memory region. In typical programs, a lot of data is short-lived, so collecting young garbage (a minor GC cycle) ...