On 02/26/09 18:07, Achilleas Margaritis wrote: [snip]
3) it does not scan the graph of objects for reachability. It uses simple numeric values (i.e. keys) to determine if an object can be collected or not.
The idea is very simple: pointers obtain keys during their construction (a simple global variable that is incremented). The key remains constant throughout the lifetime of a ptr.
During pointer release, the pointers that point to an object are scanned: if there is no pointer that points to the object that has a lower key from the key of the releasing pointer, then the object can be deleted.
Hi Achilleas. Could you explain why this should work? IOW, why does the test:
if there is no pointer that points to the object that has a lower key from the key of the releasing pointer,
assure that it's OK to delete the object? Also, to conduct the test, it appears each pointee has to maintain a set of pointer's to itself, which, I think, doubles the number of pointers, i.e. if there's and edge a -> b in the pointer graph, there most also be an edge b -> a stored in b somewhere. Is that right? -regards, Larry [snip]