GC API: Difference between revisions

GC API (view source)

726 bytes added , 30 March 2008

638

edits

@@ Line 16: / Line 16: @@
 We won't bend over backwards to make the API support [[mdc:MMgc|MMgc]] in the fastest or most natural way.  For example, the fastest possible MMgc write barrier requires the caller to know the beginning-of-allocation pointers for both the object containing the field being written and the pointer being stored there.  This is a pain for the user, and a card-marking GC doesn't need those pointers anyway.  So our API will *not* provide this information; the MMgc wrapper will have to calculate it each time the write barrier hits.  This will make MMgc look slow, but we can live with that.
+The purpose of this API is to support switching to a different GC implementation ''at compile time'', not at run time.  (Each implementation will have its own header file, with its own inline functions or function-like macros.  Maybe we'll produce a GC API header file that has no inline anything, just showing the signatures the implementation must provide, for reference.)
+'''Open issue:''' API style.  (C or C++?  Use templates?  What naming conventions?  I think it's too early to ask these questions.  So please consider all the function signatures below to be pseudocode.)
+'''Open issue:''' We should detect dumb implementation mismatches at link time and bomb out.  I don't know the trick, but I bet bsmedberg does.
 =API areas=