PROVIDING COMMON MEMORY MANAGEMENT CODE TO OBJECTS THAT ARE INSTANCES OF DIFFERENT CLASSES

摘要

A method for providing memory management for objects is described.Specifically, techniques are described for providing common memory managementcode to objects that are instances of different classes and for releasing amemory management subtree that starts with a particular object in the memorymanagement tree. A memory management template provides common pre-processormemory management code. A specialized version of the memory managementtemplate is used to create a specialized template subclass. When a memorymanagement operator of an object that is an instance of the specializedtemplate subclass is invoked the common memory management code in thespecialized template is executed. Memory is associated with each object in ahierarchical tree. Data for the memory is maintained that reflects thehierarchical tree relationship between the objects. A subtree and theassociated memory can be released without an application program tracking therelationships.