From: "Alejandro R. Mosteo" <alejandro@mosteo.com>
Subject: Re: Getting the index for an element in mutually referencing containers
Date: Mon, 13 Mar 2017 11:29:25 +0100
Date: 2017-03-13T11:29:25+01:00 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <oa5s4r$fdr$1@dont-email.me> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <lylgsac3bf.fsf@pushface.org>
On 12/03/17 09:22, Simon Wright wrote:
> Niklas Holsti <niklas.holsti@tidorum.invalid> writes:
>
>> On 17-03-11 23:46 , Simon Wright wrote:
>>
>>> Basically, I (Simon, now) am having trouble thinking of an
>>> application where reference counting would be an appropriate
>>> solution.
>>
>> How about this one: the SW generates messages (telemetry packets)
>> reporting various sorts of data and events.
>>
> [...]
>>
>> Each destination has a queue of incoming messages, and the queueing
>> and processing time for a given message varies accordingly. Rather
>> than copy the (possibly long) message into each destination's queue,
>> the queues hold references to a single, shared instance of the
>> message, dynamically allocated in a memory pool. These references are
>> counted. When, finally, all destinations have processed the message,
>> the message's reference count reaches zero, and the message can be
>> deallocated.
>>
>> This use of reference counting is a typical design in satellite
>> on-board SW.
>
> Thanks for the example!
>
> I still have a feeling that this is an in-computer software technique
> which resolves a software problem, rather than a necessary response to
> an application-domain problem.
This is how (most? I can only vouch for Java) garbage-collecting
languages work. Thus is a common way of thinking for many programmers (I
would say most think first of ref-counted ptrs before weak refs when
faced with the problem being discussed, but that's just my impression).
And the source of a kind of memory leak, which is the problem you get in
exchange for no dangling pointers...
Not surprisingly, C++ has standardized the whole shebang, with both
semantics being discussed here covered:
http://en.cppreference.com/w/cpp/memory
Alex.
next prev parent reply other threads:[~2017-03-13 10:29 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 33+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2017-03-09 13:45 Getting the index for an element in mutually referencing containers Mart van de Wege
2017-03-09 15:25 ` Egil H H
2017-03-09 15:45 ` Mart van de Wege
2017-03-09 16:02 ` Mart van de Wege
2017-03-09 16:11 ` Egil H H
[not found] ` <ly7f3xedp4.fsf@pushface.org>
[not found] ` <86k27xpikd.fsf@gaheris.avalon.lan>
[not found] ` <lywpbxc9my.fsf@pushface.org>
[not found] ` <86wpbxneuz.fsf@gaheris.avalon.lan>
[not found] ` <o9vcbp$t0t$1@franka.jacob-sparre.dk>
2017-03-11 6:45 ` Mart van de Wege
2017-03-11 8:40 ` Simon Wright
2017-03-11 8:58 ` Dmitry A. Kazakov
2017-03-11 11:21 ` Simon Wright
2017-03-11 14:18 ` Dmitry A. Kazakov
2017-03-11 20:05 ` Simon Wright
2017-03-11 20:52 ` Dmitry A. Kazakov
2017-03-11 21:46 ` Simon Wright
2017-03-11 22:37 ` Niklas Holsti
2017-03-12 8:22 ` Simon Wright
2017-03-12 9:38 ` G.B.
2017-03-12 11:21 ` Simon Wright
2017-03-13 10:29 ` Alejandro R. Mosteo [this message]
2017-03-12 8:20 ` Dmitry A. Kazakov
2017-03-12 11:30 ` Simon Wright
2017-03-12 11:55 ` Dmitry A. Kazakov
2017-03-12 16:44 ` Simon Wright
2017-03-12 17:42 ` Dmitry A. Kazakov
2017-03-13 19:55 ` Randy Brukardt
2017-03-13 20:53 ` Dmitry A. Kazakov
2017-03-14 20:40 ` Randy Brukardt
2017-03-15 8:44 ` Dmitry A. Kazakov
2017-03-15 20:12 ` Randy Brukardt
2017-03-16 2:59 ` Paul Rubin
2017-03-16 9:04 ` Dmitry A. Kazakov
2017-03-13 23:25 ` Simon Wright
2017-03-14 8:25 ` Dmitry A. Kazakov
2017-03-12 1:36 ` Randy Brukardt
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