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Subject: Re: [boost] request for interest in a garbage collection library
From: Mathias Gaunard (mathias.gaunard_at_[hidden])
Date: 2009-04-18 07:16:31


Jonas Persson wrote:

> The following example gives an access violation on windows:
>
> ----------------------------------------------
> class Foo : public gc_object<Foo> {
> public:
> gc_ptr<Foo> m_next;
> std::string m_name;
>
> Foo(std::string name) : m_name(name) {}
>
> ~Foo() {
> m_next->lastGoodbye();
> }
>
> void lastGoodbye() { std::cout << "Bye " << m_name; }
> };
> void test_cycle() {
> gc_ptr<Foo> foo1 = new Foo("foo 1");
> foo1->m_next = new Foo("foo 2");
> foo1->m_next->m_next = foo1;
>
> foo1 = 0;
> gc::collect();
> }

So that library overloads operator new, meaning all memory becomes
garbage collected, unlike what I understood from what was answered to
one of my other posts.
I even wonder how gc_ptr<T>::gc_ptr::(T*) can be a safe constructor at all.

A fairly terrible design, that has a lot of shortcomings, some of which
where raised when talking of Boehm GC (basically, bad integration).

The funny thing is that the right way to do GC in C++ has been known for
a long time, but for some reason people still want to do it some other way.
C++/CLI, despite its evilness, does it right. Bastek's library (SGCL)
seems to do it somewhat right too.


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