[boost] Re: Garbage Collection, Reference Count or Ownership?

From: cppljevans_at_[hidden]
Date: 2003-10-07 06:27:09

On 10/06/2003 11:19 PM, Philippe A. Bouchard wrote:
> cppljevans_at_[hidden] wrote:
> 
> [...]
> 
> 
>>give !same_group(a,b), how does:
>>    a = b;
>>
>>affect the result of same_group(a,b)?
> 
> 
> This is called a group "merge"; * a.m_ind will get destructed and will point
> to * b.m_ind.
Sorry to keep pestering, but I'm still unsure...
Wouldn't other member's of a's original group then be pointing to a 
destructed *m_ind.  Maybe you mean  "if *m_ind==0"?  But if a joins
b's group, this means a and b are in a cycle?  Or maybe you meant
something beside "are in a cycle" in your definition of
a group in the 10/06/2003 03:32 PM,CST post:
> Group: group of pointees on the heap refering to themselves.

Jone & Lin's _Garbage Collection_, p.71 at:

  http://www.cs.kent.ac.uk/people/staff/rej/gcbook/gcbook.html

describes something that, at least on the surface, sounds
somewhat similar:

   If cycles can only be created in predicatable
   circumstances, or restrictions are placed on
   programming style, it may be possible to treat
   cycles as a whole, i.e. with a single reference
   count, and delete it automically with the count
   drops to zero.

You might check those references out.