There are three aspects to a memory management system: (i) allocation of memory in the first place, (ii) identification of live data and (iii) reclamation for future use of memory previously allocated but currently occupied by dead objects. Garbage collectors address these issues differently than do explicit memory managers, and different automatic memory managers use different algorithms to manage these actions. However, in all cases allocation and reclamation of memory are tightly linked: how memory is reclaimed places constraints on how it is allocated.
The problem of allocating and freeing memory dynamically under program control has been addressed since the 1950s. Most of the techniques devised over the decades are of ...
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