Re: [Caml-list] Regarding SMP computing

[Gerd Stolpmann <info@gerd-stolpmann.de>]

Am Dienstag, den 26.09.2006, 10:37 -0400 schrieb Markus Mottl:
> On 9/26/06, Damien Doligez <damien.doligez@inria.fr> wrote:
> > The GC doesn't work by checking whether something has become
> > unreachable.  It works by marking all reachable data, then deallocating
> > everything else.  There is no way to do what you want in OCaml, and
> > I don't think it can be done without a major rework of the runtime
> > system.
> 
> But isn't it true that the GC doesn't follow pointers that point
> outside the OCaml-heap?  In that case it might be conceivable to copy
> OCaml-data that must not be reclaimed into the C-heap.  Of course,
> this would mean that pointers must not point back into the OCaml-heap
> from there, because there is no way the GC could know then that some
> value in the OCaml-heap is still in use, or how to update the pointer
> in the C-heap in case the OCaml-value gets moved around, e.g. during a
> compaction.

That sounds perfectly compatible with the current GC approach. All what
you need to do is to add a third, "very old" generation.

Gerd
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