GarbageCollection.txt

GarbageCollection.txt

What is Garbage Collection?
	reclaiming memory in the heap no longer being used by the program

	-- generally a feature of high level languages

	-- some garbage collection in native C, but they can't get all the garbage

Techniques
	Mark and Sweep -- recursively check every object's active status by pushing down the tree from globals and locals to all active heap memory, marking what is active and then free what is not.

Generational Garbage Collection
	optimization of mark and sweep

	keep track of how "old" an object is-- if it's been around for a few cycles, it will likely be around for a few cycles more, so we can skip checking its status.

	Divide blocks into generations, and run sweeps more frequently on younger generations.