Contaminated garbage collection

We describe a new method for determining when an object can begarbage collected. The method does not require marking live objects. Instead, each object <italic>X</italic> is <italic>dynamically</italic>associated with a stack frame <italic>M</italic>, such that <italic>X</ital ic>is collectable when <italic>M</italic> pops. Because <italic>X</italic> could have been dead earlier, our method is conservative. Our results demonstrate that the method nonetheless identifies a large percentage of collectable objects. The method has been implemented in Sun's Java Virtual Machine interpreter, and results are presented based on this implementation

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