Re: [boost] regex design question

From: Greg Colvin (gcolvin_at_[hidden])
Date: 2000-09-19 12:00:17

Does the regex allocator ultimately call the global operator new function?

Can your garbage collector replace this function?

From: Sibylle Schupp <schupp_at_[hidden]>
> 
> > However the allocator parameter here just kind of gets in the way.  I put
> > it in place because the class does allocate memory, however in the long
> run
> > I feel that this would be better managed by its own internal memory
> manager
> 
> Three thoughts:
> 1. Even if the memory manager is tailored for this particular class I would
> encapsulate
>     it in a separate component that is orthogonal to the rest of the class
> parameters.
>     I would then need an allocation parameter to bind this component.
> 2. Without allocation parameter there is no way to override an internal
>   design decision. What if the internal memory handler optimizes for speed
> while a user is
>   more interested in space efficiency?
> 3. We are developing a garbage collector for class templates and in fact
> were planning
>   on using regex as (another) example to study when  garbage collection
>   improves computation times. Although we haven't really worked with regex
> yet,  I expect there
>   will be problems if we bind the allocator at the user's level  (in
> instances of list or string classes
>   in the   main program) to the garbage collector, but cannot propagate this
> binding "all the way down."
>   For example references from one heap to  the other---the garbage-collected
> one and the
>   one of the internal manager---will be difficult to handle. I would  also
> expect that the total
>   memory overhead  increases the more allocators are involved.
> 
> Sibylle
> 
> (schupp_at_[hidden])
> 
> 
> 
> 
>