Linear-Mark: Locality vs. Accuracy in Mark-Sweep Garbage Collection

Chiara Meiohas, Stephen M. Blackburn, Erez Petrank

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contributionpeer-review

Abstract

Tracing garbage collectors are widely deployed in modern programming languages. But tracing an arbitrary heap shape incurs poor locality and may hinder scalability. In this paper, we explore an avenue for mitigating these inefficiencies at the expense of conservative, less accurate identification of live objects. We do this by proposing and studying an alternative to the Mark-Sweep tracing algorithm, called Linear-Mark. It turns out that although Linear-Mark improves locality and scalability, the accuracy of Mark-Sweep outweighs the achieved enhancements. We present the Linear-Mark garbage-collecting algorithm and provide an evaluation that highlights the trade-offs between the Linear-Mark and the Mark-Sweep approaches. Our hope is that this research will inspire further algorithmic improvements, ultimately leading to better garbage collection algorithms.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationMEMSYS 2023 - Proceedings of the International Symposium on Memory Systems
ISBN (Electronic)9798400716447
DOIs
StatePublished - 2 Oct 2023
Externally publishedYes
Event9th International Symposium on Memory Systems, MEMSYS 2023 - Washington, United States
Duration: 2 Oct 20235 Oct 2023

Publication series

NameACM International Conference Proceeding Series

Conference

Conference9th International Symposium on Memory Systems, MEMSYS 2023
Country/TerritoryUnited States
CityWashington
Period2/10/235/10/23

Keywords

  • automatic memory management
  • garbage collection
  • Mark-Sweep garbage collector
  • parallel garbage collection

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Human-Computer Interaction
  • Computer Networks and Communications
  • Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
  • Software

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Linear-Mark: Locality vs. Accuracy in Mark-Sweep Garbage Collection'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this