Method and apparatus for freeing memory from an extensible markup language document object model tree active in an application cache

摘要

The present invention relates to a garbage collector that uses an LRU algorithm to free memory from an XML DOM tree active in an application cache. According to one or more embodiments of the present invention, a threshold for the amount of memory permitted to reside in an application cache is set. Then, a garbage collector removes entries from the cache until it falls below the threshold. In one or more embodiments, a node table is used. When nodes are added to the XML DOM tree in the application cache the node table is updated. When the threshold for the amount of memory permitted to reside in the application cache is exceeded, the garbage collector applies an LRU algorithm uses the node table to determine which nodes to remove from the application cache. In one embodiment, the LRU algorithm scans the node table to determine the least recently used node in the table by examining time stamp entries in the table. Then, the algorithm removes that node and repeats the process until the XML DOM tree uses less memory in the cache than the threshold.