Discarded cycles reclamation algorithms
by Leandro Lucarella on 2008- 09- 07 03:50 (updated on 2008- 09- 07 03:50)- with 0 comment(s)
Finally, we address the cyclic structures reclaimation when doing reference counting. But I think there are some algorithms that are clearly unsuitable for D.
All the manual techniques (manually avoiding or breaking cycles or using weak pointers) are unacceptable, because it throws the problem again to the programmer. So I will consider only the options that keep the memory management automatic.
There are several specific cycles reclamation algorithms for functional languages too (like Friedman and Wise), but of course they are unsuitable for D because of the asumptios they make.
Bobrow proposed a general technique, in which a cyclic structure is reference counted as a whole (instead of reference counting their individual cells) but I find this impractical for D too, because it needs programmer intervention (marking "group" of cells).