MOSTLY CONCURRENT COMPACTION IN A GARBAGE COLLECTION SYSTEM

摘要

Objects that have been allocated to a program are relocated by first identifying those variables pointing to a selected set of objects that are in use within a subset of memory (41). As these pointers are identified, they are added to a data structure. A write barrier marks as "dirty" those memory regions in which pointers are modified by the program. A number of locations outside the subset of memory are reserved to be used to store the selected objects. Program execution is then suspended (170). Memory regions marked as "dirty" are examined to identify any further variables pointing to selected objects which are then added to the data structure (116). Those variables contained in the data structure (116) that continue to point to selected objects which are modified to point to corresponding locations outside of the subset of memory (41). Selected objects are then copied (176) to locations outside of the subset of memory, the subset of memory is returned to the free list, and the program is restarted (178).