Implementation

1
Garbage collection for data structure
reorganisation
Introduction
Complex data structures can be optimized to
reduce their access times as well as removing
unneeded data from within them. To make this
possible the garbage collector needs to provide
help to the data structure. This project examines
the functionality that needs to be provided by
the data structure and the garbage collector to
make this possible.
Implementation
Data structure
The complex data structure used for the
optimization is the trailer array. Trailer arrays
provide us a way of storing multiple sets data at
an index. Trailer arrays hold this information
indefinitely even when the information is no
longer used. We examine how to determine if sets
of data was needed or not within the structure
and then clean it up.
Data Structure object interactions.
Garbage Collection
To find unneeded data in within the data
structure, the structure needs to be informed
which versions are visible to others in the heap.
The structure then removes links to the data
within the structure, the garbage collector can
then remove unneeded objects during a normal
garbage collection. The JikesRVM platform was
used to handle calling of the cleanup as well as
identifying the data structure objects.
A view of the Data Structure in the heap.
by George Kurian gk37_at_kent.ac.uk