Garbage collection, Operating System

Assignment Help:

The dynamic memory allocator is a layer between the application and the OS, managing heap objects. When a program requests memory from the allocator (via malloc(), for instance), the allocator will return a pointer (or reference) to a piece of memory of the appropriate size. When the program is done with the memory, the memory should be released back to the allocator. Languages such as C and C++ leave this job to the programmer to perform manually, for example by using free(). On the other hand, languages such as Java, python, etc automatically manage dynamically-allocated memory, which makes the programmer's life easier, and can eliminate entire classes of memory management bugs.

Although using free() and delete is relatively simple, it can be tricky to get them right. A signi?cant fraction of bugs in C and C++ programs are related to manual memory management. If we forget to free objects, we end up with memory leaks; if we free memory too soon, we end up with "dangling pointers"; also, we can try to do weird things, like performing double frees, etc. Therefore, a process that manages memory automatically is clearly useful. The most important concept for correctly implementing a garbage collector is that of live objects: a live object is any object that can still be reached through one (or more) pointers.


Related Discussions:- Garbage collection

Estimate the continued transfer rate of drive, Q. The term "fast wide SCSI...

Q. The term "fast wide SCSI-II" signifies a SCSI bus that operates at a data rate of 20 megabytes per second when it moves a packet of bytes among the host and a device. Presume t

Explain about directory structure, Normal 0 false false fal...

Normal 0 false false false EN-IN X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4

How is a process chosen for being swapped either in or out?, How is a proce...

How is a process chosen for being swapped either in or out? Swap out: a.         If the process is idle. b.         If process has been in main memory for a long time.

What is a semaphore, Question 1: a) State the different file attribute...

Question 1: a) State the different file attributes and briefly explain the operations that can be performed on each files. b) What is a semaphore? Describe why it is impor

Explain working of the logical file system, Explain working of the logical ...

Explain working of the logical file system The logical file system manages metadata information. Metadata contains all of the file-system structure, excluding actual data. It h

What are the different methods for handling deadlocks?, What are the differ...

What are the different methods for handling deadlocks? Deadlock detection and recovery: Permit the system to enter a deadlock state, detect it and after that rec

Parent and child process communicate in unix, Parent and Child process comm...

Parent and Child process communicate in unix A child and parent can interact through any of the normal  inter-process communication schemes (pipes, message queues, sockets, s

Distinguish among a streams driver and a streams module, Q. Distinguish amo...

Q. Distinguish among a STREAMS driver and a STREAMS module? Answer: The STREAMS driver controls the physical device that could be involved in a STREAMS operation. The STREAMS

Write Your Message!

Captcha
Free Assignment Quote

Assured A++ Grade

Get guaranteed satisfaction & time on delivery in every assignment order you paid with us! We ensure premium quality solution document along with free turntin report!

All rights reserved! Copyrights ©2019-2020 ExpertsMind IT Educational Pvt Ltd