Method and apparatus for optimizing exact garbage collection of objects having intermingled pointer and non-pointer values

摘要

Apparatus, methods, systems and computer program products are disclosed describing an instantiated object data structure and associated processes that optimize garbage collection techniques on the data structure. The instantiated object references a class that contains a bitmap that contains a pattern. The pattern indicates which instance variables in the object are pointer instance variables. A garbage collection process uses the pattern in the bitmap to index into a table of routines that process the pointers in the object. Each routine accessible through the table is configured to process a particular pattern of pointer variables intermixed with non-pointer variables in the instantiated object.