Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!samsung!munnari.oz.au!comp.vuw.ac.nz!actrix!Bruce.Hoult
From: Bruce.Hoult@bbs.actrix.gen.nz
Newsgroups: comp.object
Subject: Re: Stash Collection
Message-ID: <1990Nov27.130204.27632@actrix.gen.nz>
Date: 27 Nov 90 13:02:04 GMT
References: <2849@esquire.dpw.com>
Sender: Bruce.Hoult@actrix.gen.nz (Bruce Hoult)
Organization: Actrix Information Exchange, Wellington, New Zealand
Lines: 14
Comment-To: yost@DPW.COM

In article <2849@esquire.dpw.com> yost@DPW.COM (David A. Yost) writes:

> The idea is that when GC can't make enough room to satisfy
> a request, it invokes SC, which looks around for objects
> that will volunteer to give up some memory they don't really
> need, such as cached data or multiple reperesentations of
> the same data.
> 
> Has anyone developed such a mechanism?

The memory manager in the Macintosh does this.  The user can mark heap
blocks as "purgeable", in which case they might not be there the next time
you look at them.  This means you have to test them and recreate if
necessary each time you reference them.