Title :
Hardware and operating system support for conservative garbage collection
Author :
Boehm, Hans-Juergen
Author_Institution :
Xerox Palo Alto Res. Center, CA, USA
Abstract :
Conservative garbage collectors can automatically reclaim unreferenced storage, even if the client program is unaware of the existence of a collector. Nearly all garbage collectors can benefit from some form of hardware, and especially operating system support. Conservative collectors benefit particularly from two kinds of facilities. The first is trivial, but often over-looked; it should be possible to write a function that quickly identifies all data areas associated with a program. Secondly, there should be an efficient mechanism for identifying areas of memory that have been recently written. This requirement is shared with other kinds of collectors. But conservative collectors, since they do not rely on moving objects can benefit more than moving collectors
Keywords :
operating systems (computers); storage management; conservative garbage collection; hardware; operating system support; unreferenced storage; Data structures; Hardware; Operating systems; Program processors; Programming profession; Runtime; Storage automation;
Conference_Titel :
Object Orientation in Operating Systems, 1991. Proceedings., 1991 International Workshop on
Conference_Location :
Palo Alto, CA
Print_ISBN :
0-8186-2265-2
DOI :
10.1109/IWOOOS.1991.183023