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Summary

This chapter has presented the principal families of algorithms for automatic memory reclamation with the goal of detailing those used in Objective CAML. The Objective CAML garbage collector is an incremental garbage collector with two generations. It uses Mark&Sweep for the old generation, and Stop&Copy for the young generation. Two modules directly linked to the garbage collector allow control of the evolution of the heap. The Gc module allows analysis of the behavior of the garbage collector and modification of certain parameters with the goal of optimizing specific applications. With the Weak module one can save in arrays values that are potentially reclaimable, but which are still accessible. This module is useful for implementing a memory cache.


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