Patent ID: 7987215
Filing Date: 2011-07-26
Classification: G06F

Abstract:
1. In a computing environment including application code that implements garbage collection functionality for reclaiming memory, wherein the garbage collection functionality includes pushing object references onto a mark stack, a method of adding references to objects to the mark stack in a manner that allows a limited number of references to objects referenced by an object with a large number of object references to be added to the stack, the method comprising: (a) accessing an object; (b) determining that the object comprises a plurality of references to one or more other objects that would exceed available space in a mark stack if all of the references were pushed onto the mark stack, and that only a subset of the references in the object should be added to the mark stack; (c) pushing a reference to the object onto the mark stack in conjunction with a pointer, the pointer being used to track which references in the object have been pushed on the mark stack, the mark stack being configured to allow for marking of objects pushed on the marked stack to prevent memory for the objects referenced on the mark stack from being reclaimed for other objects; (d) accessing the reference to the object on the mark stack; (e) initializing the pointer; (f) pushing one or more of the references in the object onto the mark stack; and (g) updating the pointer to track which references in the object have been pushed on the mark stack.