Trace termination for on-the-fly garbage collection for weakly-consistent computer architecture

摘要

A method for memory management in execution of a program by a computer having a memory includes allocating respective portions of the memory to data objects using mutator threads of the program, whereby the objects are held in a heap created by the program. The data objects in the heap are traced so as to mark the data objects that are reachable at a given stage in the program. The computer loops over the mutator threads so as to verify for each of the mutator threads that every update to the allocated portions of the memory in progress by the mutator thread has been completed. The heap is then swept so as to free the memory that is allocated to the data objects that are not marked as reachable, for reallocation to new data objects.