Garbage collection in C

[jacob navia]

Tired of chasing free(tm) bugs?

Get serious about C and use lcc-win32. The garbage collector designed by Boehm is the best of its
class. Very simple:

#define malloc GC_malloc
#define free(a) (a=NULL)

NICE isn't it?

No more chasing free() bugs, no more this incredible tedious accounting where it is SO easy to miss
some pointer. Leave to the machine what the machine does best: the boring accounting work and
concentrate in your algorithm, the thing humans do best and where machines fail.

Garbage collection is not restricted to Java or C#. Lcc-win32 introduced it more than 2 years ago in
the context of a Windows C implementation. A DLL you link with your program, a header file more, and
MANY hours of debugging less.

And this code is portable, since Boehm's work runs in many Unices, workstations and many types of
machines.

Garbage collection means less headaches for you, and simpler programs to maintain and debug. The
amount of buggy code that is dedicated to manage the allocation system can be significant and it is
by experience one of the most difficults part to debug.

Scrap it!

http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~lcc-win32

jacob

[jacob navia]

"Alan Balmer" <al******@att.n et> wrote in message news:ve******** *************** *********@4ax.c om...

On Sun, 10 Aug 2003 10:34:43 +0200, "jacob navia"
<ja*********@ja cob.remcomp.fr> wrote:

Garbage collection is not restricted to Java or C#. Lcc-win32 introduced it more than 2 years ago inthe context of a Windows C implementation.

Where did you get the idea that garbage collection was invented two
years ago by Lcc-win32? Garbage collection was invented many years
before Java, C# or Windows existed.

Please Al, try to be fair:

1) I always said that the GC is the work of Mr Boehm and not mine.
I just adapted his work to lcc-win32 two years ago.
2) I did not invent garbage collection. This is ridiculous. The first
garbage collector I wrote was a mark/sweep for a lisp interpreter
in 1987. And GC was already an old hat back then.

Why you need this polemic?

Got an argument?

Explain it.

jacob

[Stephen Howe]

> #define malloc GC_malloc

#define free(a) (a=NULL)

NICE isn't it?

No more chasing free() bugs, no more this incredible tedious accounting where it is SO easy to miss some pointer. Leave to the machine what the machine does best: the boring accounting work and concentrate in your algorithm, the thing humans do best and where machines

fail.

I don't regard those arguments as valid arguments for GC. GC is one type of
resource management for memory. Since nothing else is offered, I assume that
you are proposing the same "incredible tedious accounting" for all _OTHER_
types of resource management, e.g. file handling.

There is a case for GC for some problems. This isn't it.

Stephen Howe

[Alan Balmer]

On Mon, 11 Aug 2003 18:30:56 +0200, "jacob navia"
<ja*********@ja cob.remcomp.fr> wrote:

"Alan Balmer" <al******@att.n et> wrote in message news:jp******** *************** *********@4ax.c om...

On Mon, 11 Aug 2003 02:22:38 +0200, "jacob navia"
<ja*********@ja cob.remcomp.fr> wrote:

and wrote, and wrote, and ...

I ignored the advertising the first time, but I am now very close to
filtering your messages as a continuing waste of my time and disk
space.

Please do so.

You've convinced me. Bye.

--
Al Balmer
Balmer Consulting
re************* ***********@att .net

[jacob navia]

"Stephen Howe" <SP************ *******@tnsofre s.com> wrote in message
news:3f******** *************** @reading.news.p ipex.net...

#define malloc GC_malloc
#define free(a) (a=NULL)

NICE isn't it?

No more chasing free() bugs, no more this incredible tedious accounting where it is SO easy to miss

some pointer. Leave to the machine what the machine does best: the boring

accounting work and

concentrate in your algorithm, the thing humans do best and where machines

fail.

I don't regard those arguments as valid arguments for GC. GC is one type of
resource management for memory. Since nothing else is offered, I assume that
you are proposing the same "incredible tedious accounting" for all _OTHER_
types of resource management, e.g. file handling.

Yes, I am afraid you are right. Garbage collecting files should be done by the
operating system, I suppose, if at all.

As you can see from the discussion above, the mere fact of introducing the gc
makes for so many flame wars that any other innovation would be very difficult

There is a case for GC for some problems. This isn't it.

Can you explain?
I am curious.

jacob

[CBFalconer]

Alan Balmer wrote:

<ja*********@ja cob.remcomp.fr> wrote:

Garbage collection is not restricted to Java or C#. Lcc-win32
introduced it more than 2 years ago in the context of a Windows
C implementation.

Where did you get the idea that garbage collection was invented
two years ago by Lcc-win32? Garbage collection was invented
many years before Java, C# or Windows existed.

Or C, or even Pascal. I think it originated with Lisp.

--
Chuck F (cb********@yah oo.com) (cb********@wor ldnet.att.net)
Available for consulting/temporary embedded and systems.
<http://cbfalconer.home .att.net> USE worldnet address!

[Serve La]

"Stephen Howe" <SP************ *******@tnsofre s.com> wrote in message
news:3f******** *************** @reading.news.p ipex.net...

I don't regard those arguments as valid arguments for GC. GC is one type of resource management for memory. Since nothing else is offered, I assume that you are proposing the same "incredible tedious accounting" for all _OTHER_
types of resource management, e.g. file handling.

It's almost (almost) getting funny, the resistance you people are showing
against GC. Files are used totally differently. I have never seen anybody
including myself chasing an "fclose" bug, or closing an invalid file
pointer.

[Ben Pfaff]

"jacob navia" <ja*********@ja cob.remcomp.fr> writes:

#define free(a) (a=NULL)

Bad idea. free()'s argument is not necessarily a modifiable
lvalue; e.g. free(malloc(1)) ;
--
"I've been on the wagon now for more than a decade. Not a single goto
in all that time. I just don't need them any more. I don't even use
break or continue now, except on social occasions of course. And I
don't get carried away." --Richard Heathfield

[Mark McIntyre]

On Mon, 11 Aug 2003 20:11:34 +0200, in comp.lang.c , "jacob navia"
<ja*********@ja cob.remcomp.fr> wrote:

As you can see from the discussion above, the mere fact of introducing the gc
makes for so many flame wars that any other innovation would be very difficult

You miss the point entirely, and I begin to think you're trolling.
Nobody is against GC, merely against your promotion of a specific
implementation of it.

There is a case for GC for some problems. This isn't it.

Can you explain? I am curious.

As Dan Pop would say, "engage brain before posting"

--
Mark McIntyre
CLC FAQ <http://www.eskimo.com/~scs/C-faq/top.html>
CLC readme: <http://www.angelfire.c om/ms3/bchambless0/welcome_to_clc. html>
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[Richard Bos]

"jacob navia" <ja*********@ja cob.remcomp.fr> wrote:

"Alan Balmer" <al******@att.n et> wrote in message news:jp******** *************** *********@4ax.c om...

On Mon, 11 Aug 2003 02:22:38 +0200, "jacob navia"
<ja*********@ja cob.remcomp.fr> wrote:

and wrote, and wrote, and ...

I ignored the advertising the first time, but I am now very close to
filtering your messages as a continuing waste of my time and disk
space.

Please do so.

Your message is so constructive and full real arguments, that I think
it is better to ignore it.

comp.lang.c according to you,

I seriously considered using LCC as my C compiler for Windows. Yes,
seriously. But if this thread is a demonstration of its creator's love
for solid code, adherence to well-established good practice, and *sheer
bloody arrogance*, I'm now very seriously _re_-considering.

Congratulations . You just lost yourself a user. And a reader: *plonk*.

Richard

[Dave Vandervies]

In article <bh**********@n ews4.tilbu1.nb. home.nl>, Serve La <[e-mail]> wrote:

It's almost (almost) getting funny, the resistance you people are showing
against GC. Files are used totally differently. I have never seen anybody
including myself chasing an "fclose" bug, or closing an invalid file
pointer.

I have.

And I'm not about to suggest that GC-style resource management would
have made the code work, or even made the bug less of a problem.
It definitely wouldn't've made it easier to find.

There are more things in heaven and earth,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
dave
(For the curious: Another programmer's code was incorrectly using
freopen(...,std err) instead of fopen(...). (And then closing the file.
On every call.) This invoked the "Just Happens To Work As Expected"
sort of undefined behavior until I tried to read from a file around
calls to this code, and (after two days) I realized that when my code
opened the file it got the FILE structure that stderr pointed at (which
had been closed, and was therefore available for re-use), and the call
into the buggy code clobbered my FILE.)

--
Dave Vandervies dj******@csclub .uwaterloo.ca
[A]s K&R didn't quite say: "We have tried to eliminate the brevity of the first
edition. Patterns are not a big idea, and they are not well-served by a small
book". --Richard Heathfield in comp.lang.c