Re: Software directions to ponder over...

Date view Thread view Subject view Author view

From: Tony Finch (dot@dotat.at)
Date: Thu Sep 28 2000 - 04:51:14 PDT


Tony Finch <dot@dotat.at> wrote:
>
>For example, there is an implementation of ML with automatic memory
>management that does not use garbage collection -- it works out at
>compile time where to insert calls to malloc and free.

Actually, that's wrong. What it does is allocate everything on the
stack by rewriting the program so that it keeps track of the stack
frame in which a value must be placed so that the lifetime of the
stack frame corresponds with the lifetime of the value. Data
structures that can grow arbitrarily large spill over into the heap
but they are still freed in a stack-like manner. Like Apache's pools
there is a potential for unpleasant memory leeks so it would probably
benefit from a garbage collector for on-heap regions, but it seems to
do well enough without one.

Tony.

-- 
en oeccget g mtcaa    f.a.n.finch
v spdlkishrhtewe y    dot@dotat.at
eatp o v eiti i d.    fanf@covalent.net


Date view Thread view Subject view Author view

This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu Sep 28 2000 - 04:55:58 PDT