Garbage collector with concurrent flipping without read barrier and without verifying copying

US8527559B2 · kind B2 · utility

Assignee

• Clausal Computing Oy · FI

Inventor

• Tatu J. Ylonen · Espoo, FI

Key dates

• Filing date: May 19, 2011
• Grant date: Sep 3, 2013
• Expiry date: Dec 29, 2031

Classification

• Technology area (CPC G): Physics
• CPC primary: G06F12/0269
• WIPO field: Computer technology
• WIPO sector: Electrical engineering

Abstract

In an object-relocating garbage collector, objects are copied and new copies taken into use concurrently with mutator execution without needing to use a read barrier, and importantly, without requiring verification (read-back) of each copied word and without requiring atomic instructions for the copying. Write barriers, thread-local write barrier buffers and processing them by the garbage collector, and write propagation are used for achieving this.