A Real Time Garbage Collector Based on the Lifetimes of Objects

Unknown author (1981-10-01)

In previous heap storage systems, the cost of creating objects and garbage collection is independent of the lifetime of the object. Since objects with short lifetimes account for a large portion of storage use, it's worth optimizing a garbage collector to reclaim storage for these objects more quickly. The garbage collector should spend proportionately less effort reclaiming objects with longer lifetimes. We present a garbage collection algorithm which: Makes storage for short-lived objects cheaper than storage for long-lived objects. Operates in real time ??ject creation and access times are bounded. Increases locality of reference, for better virtual memory performance. Works well with multiple processors and a large address space.