Method and system for dynamic memory management

• US 8,631,219 B2
• Filed: 02/03/2012
• Issued: 01/14/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 11/16/1998
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: RPX Corporation
• Original Assignee: Myriad Group AG
• Inventors: Sexton, Jeremy James, Kramskoy, Jeremy Paul, Guthrie, Philippa Joy, Dias, Blaise Abel Alec, Darnell, Stephen, Charnell, William Thomas, Thomas, Stephen Paul, Plummer, Wayne, Rautenbach, Keith, Wynn, Michael John
• Primary Examiner(s): Ho, Andy
• Application Number:
  US13/365,936
• Publication Number:
  US 20120278581A1
• Time in Patent Office: 711 Days
• Field of Search: 711/166, 718/100, 719/316
• US Class Current: 711/166
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3612 by runtime analysis performance monitoring G06F11/3466
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 12/0269 Incremental or concurrent garbage collection, e.g. in real-time systems G06F12/0261 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2209/481 Exception handling
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/4442 Reducing the number of cache misses; Data prefetching cache prefetching G06F12/0862
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/445 Exploiting fine grain parallelism, i.e. parallelism at instruction level run-time instruction scheduling G06F9/3836
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/4484 Executing subprograms
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/449 Object-oriented method invocation or resolution
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/4491 Optimising based on receiver type
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/455 Emulation; Interpretation; Software simulation, e.g. virtualisation or emulation of application or operating system execution engines
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/45516 Runtime code conversion or optimisation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/4812 by interrupt, e.g. masked
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99932 Access augmentation or optimizing
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99953 Recoverability
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99956 File allocation

Abstract

A computer system which includes a plurality of threads and a garbage collector that traces memory objects and identifies memory objects according to a three-color abstraction. The computer system also includes two methods of deleting compiled code in a self-modifying multi-threaded computer system. The computer system also utilizes a method of handling links between fragments of code in a self-modifying multi-threaded computer system. The computer system also handles patches between two pieces of code.

Claims

1. A computer system comprising:

a processor and a memory with memory objects therein, said processor handling a plurality of threads and including a garbage collector that traces memory objects and identifies memory objects according to a three-color abstraction, the garbage collector identifying a memory object with a certain color if that memory object itself has been encountered by the garbage collector, but some of the objects to which the memory object refers have not yet been encountered; and

said processor further comprising a packet manager accessible by the plurality of threads and the garbage collector, the packet manager operable to organize memory objects identified with the certain color into packets, provide services to obtain empty or partially full packets and obtain fill or partially full packets, and verify whether a packet of the certain color is being accessed by one of the plurality of threads of the garbage collector.

2. A computer system as claimed in claim 1, wherein the certain color is gray.

3. A computer system as claimed in claim 1, wherein each packet includes a plurality of slots.

4. A computer system as claimed in claim 3, wherein each packet includes one slot per reference to a memory object.

5. A computer system as claimed in claim 1, wherein each packet has a fixed size.