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A Larch Specification of Copying Garbage Collection



I've written a specification of copying GC in Larch which may be of
interest to some of you.  It's  CMU-CS-92-219 and I've included an
abstract, ftp directions and hardcopy ordering directions below.  I'd
welcome any feedback you might have about it.

Scott Nettles
nettles@cs.cmu.edu

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A Larch Specification of Copying Garbage Collection

Garbage collection (GC) is an important part of many language
implementations.  One of the most important garbage collection
techniques is copying GC.  This paper consists of an informal but
abstract description of copying collection, a formal specification of
copying collection written in the Larch Shared Language and the Larch/C
Interface Language, a simple implementation of a copying collector
written in C, an informal proof that the implementation satisfies the
specification, and a discussion of how the specification applies to
other types of copying GC such as generational copying collectors.
Limited familiarity with copying GC or Larch is needed to read the
specification.

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   DIRECTIONS FOR ANONYMOUS FTP:
   1) Ftp to reports.adm.cs.cmu.edu (128.2.218.42) as "anonymous".

   2) At the password prompt, send your Username@site
      (you must include the "@" or the login will fail)

   3) Then "cd 1992"  (the directory for 1992 technical reports)

   4) Use the standard ftp commands, such as "get", "cd", "ls", etc.

   5) The reports are in postscript format (.ps).  The index file
      is called README.mss.  The reports are listed in the directory
      by their NUMBER.ps...for example, CMU-CS-92-100.ps, CMU-CS-92-101.ps
      and so on.  The majority of the files are not compressed, although
      any compressed files will be listed as NUMBER.ps.Z .  A very few
      reports have been broken down into multiple postscript files.  They
      will appear as NUMBERA.ps, NUMBERB.ps, etc.  The README.mss will
      indicate the reports that have multiple .ps files.

   6) When you have finished copying the files you need, simply "quit."

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You can order a printed version from the following address.

Computer Science Documentation
School of Computer Science
Carnegie Mellon University
5000 Forbes Avenue
Pittsburgh, PA  15213-3891
reports@cs.cmu.edu - 412/268-2596

The market price:

Domestic: (US/CANADA) $2.00 (this includes first class postage and
                             document production)
Overseas:              5.00 (includes airmail and document production)