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From: rfb@lehman.com (Rick Busdiecker)
Subject: Re: Reference Counting (was Re: Searching Method for Incremental Garbage Collection)
In-Reply-To: Richard Berman's message of 27 Nov 1994 08:44:00 GMT
To: Richard Berman <sts@crl.com>
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References: <CzHCvp.9rM@rheged.dircon.co.uk> <TFB.94Nov21091959@burns.cogsci.ed.ac.uk>
	<RFB.94Nov25111447@cfdevx1.lehman.com> <3b9gsg$hv8@nntp.crl.com>
Date: Mon, 28 Nov 1994 02:31:14 GMT
Xref: glinda.oz.cs.cmu.edu comp.lang.c:118087 comp.lang.c++:100573 comp.lang.lisp:15833

In article <3b9gsg$hv8@nntp.crl.com> Richard Berman <sts@crl.com> writes:

   rfb@lehman.com (Rick Busdiecker) wrote:
   >
   > RC's failure to handle circularities is well known and (usually)
   > undisputed.  If you use RC for garbage collection, you either have to
   > avoid circular data structures or you have to provide a `fall back'
   > mechanism that will address circularities.

   Y'know, I remember solving this one (it was 10 years ago!) -- I'll
   have to look it up if I can dig up the sources and post a message
   about how I did it.

Be careful, there may not be enough room in the margin for your proof :-)

Seriously though, many people have solved the problem in many ways.
The point is that reference counting does not solve it.  You have to
add some mechanism that is not reference counting to avoid making
circular data structures into memory leaks.

--
Rick Busdiecker <rfb@lehman.com>      Please do not send electronic junk mail!
  Lehman Brothers Inc.
  3 World Financial Center  "The more laws and order are made prominent, the
  New York, NY  10285-1100   more thieves and robbers there will be." --Lao Tzu
