[kaffe] Garbage Collection

Zoe chyu at csis.hku.hk
Fri Feb 28 07:27:07 PST 2003


Hi,

> pocketlinux' version of kaffe had seen more internal
> development from Transvirtual, and should contain some
> improvements in some areas (AWT, rudimentary jit4,
> gc-interface to boehm, more ports & threading systems,
> better gcj support ...), but it has been surpassed in
> others ;)
>
> In short, volunteers are needed to merge in the good
> bits.
>
I see.  I would like to ask a stupid question: where can I find PocketLinux
Kaffe.  The URL http://www.pocketlinux.com cannot be reached.

> > Do
> > you mean that the GC in
> > PocketLinux Kaffe can be plugged into Kaffe as well?
>
> Only if the gc interface hasn't diverged much between
> the two versions. I haven't looked at it seriously
> yet, so I can't tell. It would be nice if someone
> could try to merge it in, so we can know for sure ;)
>
Even if the GC interface doesn't diverge much between the two, I wonder if
the GC for PocketLinux is suitable for Kaffe.  PocketLinux is developed for
hand-held or mobile devices.  GC for these resource constraint environments
cannot be very complicated and has many restrictions.  So I would like to
take a look on PocketLinux's source code, see how it can have Boehm's GC
merged.  If possible, I would like to merge PocketLinux's GC into Kaffe (if
that's not too tedious), see if there is any performance improvement.

Final question: I would like to know if there is any write barrier
implemented in Kaffe-1.0.7 currently?  It seems that it is somehow
implemented in Kaffe (GC_WRITE?), but I cannot find its implementation.
Would you mind tell me where does its source code locate?  I think a write
barrier is important for an incremental/asynchronous GC.

Actually, I use Kaffe for my research purpose.  Currently I try to study and
understand the entire memory management system of Kaffe.  I would be very
grateful if you can answer my questions.  Thanks!

Regards,
Zoe





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