STORED DATA OBJECT MARKING FOR GARBAGE COLLECTORS

摘要

A data processing method and apparatus are described for mark-sweep garbage collection through stored data structures defined by data objects in a multi threading environment supporting the handling of finalizers. The sweeping stage consists of a linear sweep across the heap in which any objects with a mark-state of Deletable are deleted, while objects with finalizers and mark-state of pending are placed on a finalizers queue and marked. The number of objects with finalizers is tracked and compared with the known total allocated to the heap. If not all finalizable objects are found, a further marking operation is required to identify all objects reachable by finalizers. However, if all finalizable objects are found by the first marking operation, as indicated by a match between the found and stored totals, the marked unreachable objects may all be deleted in a single pass.