Region-based memory management systems structures memory by grouping objects in regions under program control. Memory is reclaimed by deleting regions, freeing all objects stored therein. Our compiler for C with regions, RC, prevents unsafe region deletions by keeping a count of references to each region. RC is compiled to C. Using type annotations that make the structure of a program's regions more explicit and a reference counting scheme that optimises reference count operations on local variables, we reduce the overhead of reference counting from a maximum of 27% to a maximum of 18% on our benchmarks. We generalise these annotations in a region type system whose main novelty is the use of existentially quantified abstract regions to represent pointers to objects whose region is partially or totally unknown.
Title
Language Support and Compilation Techniques for Regions
Published
2000-11-01
Full Collection Name
Electrical Engineering & Computer Sciences Technical Reports
Other Identifiers
CSD-00-1115
Type
Text
Extent
21 p
Archive
The Engineering Library
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