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Garbage Collection and Other Optimizations


Author(s) : David R. Chase, 
Publisher : N/A
Publication Date : 1987
ISSN : N/A
Abstract : Existing techniques for garbage collection and machine code optimizations can interfere with each other. The inability to fully optimize code in a garbage-collected system is a hidden cost of garbage collection. One solution to this problem is proposed; an inexpensive protocol that permits most optimizations and garbage collection to coexist. A second approach to this problem and a separate problem in its own right is to reduce the need for garbage collection. This requires analysis of storage lifetime. Inferring storage lifetime is difficult in a language with nested and recursive data structures, but it is precisely these languages in which garbage collection is most useful. An improved analysis for ?storage containment ? is described. Containment information can be represented in a directed graph. The derivation of this graph falls into a monotone data-flow analysis framework; in addition, the derivation has the Church-Rosser property. The graphs produced,