Memory Management and Garbage Collection

Abstract

This chapter describes how Smalltalk manages its memory and how automatic garbage collection is achieved. Automatic garbage collection and memory management are one of the main features lacking from some other object oriented languages (such as C++ ). We therefore begin the chapter by considering why high level object oriented languages should provide automatic memory management and garbage collection. A discussion is then presented of the way in which VisualWorks manages its memory and identifies those objects whose memory can be collected and reused. The process, by which obejcts can be relocated into permanent memory, is described. This can improve the efficiency of the garbage collector. Following this we consider the exception handling facilities in Smalltalk.