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 GC_MALLOC(1L)                                                 GC_MALLOC(1L)
                               2 October 2003



 NAME
      GC_malloc, GC_malloc_atomic, GC_free, GC_realloc,
      GC_enable_incremental, GC_register_finalizer,
      GC_malloc_ignore_off_page, GC_malloc_atomic_ignore_off_page,
      GC_set_warn_proc - Garbage collecting malloc replacement

 SYNOPSIS
      #include "gc.h"
      void * GC_malloc(size_t size);
      void GC_free(void *ptr);
      void * GC_realloc(void *ptr, size_t size);

      cc ... gc.a

 DESCRIPTION
      GC_malloc and GC_free are plug-in replacements for standard malloc and
      free.  However, GC_malloc will attempt to reclaim inaccessible space
      automatically by invoking a conservative garbage collector at
      appropriate points.  The collector traverses all data structures
      accessible by following pointers from the machines registers,
      stack(s), data, and bss segments.  Inaccessible structures will be
      reclaimed.  A machine word is considered to be a valid pointer if it
      is an address inside an object allocated by GC_malloc or friends.  In
      most cases it is preferable to call the macros GC_MALLOC, GC_FREE,
      etc.  instead of calling GC_malloc and friends directly.  This allows
      debugging versions of the routines to be substituted by defining
      GC_DEBUG before including gc.h.  See the documentation in the include
      files gc_cpp.h and gc_allocator.h, as well as the gcinterface.html
      file in the distribution, for an alternate, C++ specific interface to
      the garbage collector.  Note that C++ programs generally need to be
      careful to ensure that all allocated memory (whether via new, malloc,
      or STL allocators) that may point to garbage collected memory is
      either itself garbage collected, or at least traced by the collector.
      Unlike the standard implementations of malloc, GC_malloc clears the
      newly allocated storage.  GC_malloc_atomic does not.  Furthermore, it
      informs the collector that the resulting object will never contain any
      pointers, and should therefore not be scanned by the collector.
      GC_free can be used to deallocate objects, but its use is optional,
      and generally discouraged.  GC_realloc has the standard realloc
      semantics.  It preserves pointer-free-ness.  GC_register_finalizer
      allows for registration of functions that are invoked when an object
      becomes inaccessible.  The garbage collector tries to avoid allocating
      memory at locations that already appear to be referenced before
      allocation.  (Such apparent ``pointers'' are usually large integers
      and the like that just happen to look like an address.)  This may make
      it hard to allocate very large objects.  An attempt to do so may
      generate a warning.  GC_malloc_ignore_off_page and
      GC_malloc_atomic_ignore_off_page inform the collector that the client
      code will always maintain a pointer to near the beginning of the
      object (within the first 512 bytes), and that pointers beyond that can
      be ignored by the collector.  This makes it much easier for the



                                    - 1 -        Formatted:  October 4, 2024






 GC_MALLOC(1L)                                                 GC_MALLOC(1L)
                               2 October 2003



      collector to place large objects.  These are recommended for large
      object allocation.  (Objects expected to be larger than about
      100KBytes should be allocated this way.) It is also possible to use
      the collector to find storage leaks in programs destined to be run
      with standard malloc/free.  The collector can be compiled for thread-
      safe operation.  Unlike standard malloc, it is safe to call malloc
      after a previous malloc call was interrupted by a signal, provided the
      original malloc call is not resumed.  The collector may, on rare
      occasion produce warning messages.  On UNIX machines these appear on
      stderr.  Warning messages can be filtered, redirected, or ignored with
      GC_set_warn_proc This is recommended for production code.  See gc.h
      for details.  Fully portable code should call GC_INIT from the main
      program before making any other GC calls.  On most platforms this does
      nothing and the collector is initialized on first use.  On a few
      platforms explicit initialization is necessary.  And it can never
      hurt. Debugging versions of many of the above routines are provided as
      macros.  Their names are identical to the above, but consist of all
      capital letters.  If GC_DEBUG is defined before gc.h is included,
      these routines do additional checking, and allow the leak detecting
      version of the collector to produce slightly more useful output.
      Without GC_DEBUG defined, they behave exactly like the lower-case
      versions.  On some machines, collection will be performed
      incrementally after a call to GC_enable_incremental.  This may
      temporarily write protect pages in the heap.  See the README file for
      more information on how this interacts with system calls that write to
      the heap.  Other facilities not discussed here include limited
      facilities to support incremental collection on machines without
      appropriate VM support, provisions for providing more explicit object
      layout information to the garbage collector, more direct support for
      ``weak'' pointers, support for ``abortable'' garbage collections
      during idle time, etc.

 SEE ALSO
      The README and gc.h files in the distribution.  More detailed
      definitions of the functions exported by the collector are given
      there.  (The above list is not complete.) The web site at
      http://www.hpl.hp.com/personal/Hans_Boehm/gc .  Boehm, H., and M.
      Weiser, "Garbage Collection in an Uncooperative Environment", Software
      Practice & Experience, September 1988, pp. 807-820.  The malloc(3) man
      page.

 AUTHOR
      Hans-J. Boehm (Hans.Boehm@hp.com).  Some of the code was written by
      others, most notably Alan Demers.










                                    - 2 -        Formatted:  October 4, 2024