Re: Reference Counting (was Re: Searching Method for Incremental Garbage Collection)

[gmckee@cloudnine.com (Gary McKee)]

In Article <D0KDGE.31F@inmet.camb.inmet.com>, bobduff@dsd.camb.inmet.com
(Bob Duff) wrote:
>In article <hbakerD08qGF.4qM@netcom.com>,
>Henry G. Baker <hbaker@netcom.com> wrote:
>>I just wanted to point out again that objects whose reference counts
>>are always one, and the programmer/compiler knows this, avoid the
>>usual overheads of reference counting.
>
>But it seems to me that in a language like Ada, if a given object only
>has one reference pointing to it, and that fact is known at compile
>time, then you would almost always declare that object as a normal
>stack-allocated object.  So it would not be in the heap in the first
>place, so reference counting would never occur.
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Bob,

One counter-example would be the situation with compilers that limit the
size of the stack space but not the size of the heap. 

I have placed large, static arrays with predefined values onto the heap in
order to leave the stack space for subprogram usage (especially recursive
subprograms).

Gary McKee
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