Copyright (C) 1993, Digital Equipment Corporation    

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RTCollectorSRC is an extension of RTCollector, specific to the SRC Modula-3 implementation.

INTERFACE RTCollectorSRC;

StartCollection and FinishCollection allow the programmer direct control over when to collect.

PROCEDURE StartCollection();

Start a total collection, if none is in progress and if collection and motion are enabled.

PROCEDURE FinishCollection();

Finish the current collection, if one is on progress.

The following read/write parameters tune the SRC collector's performance. They may be set by the client at any point, although they may not have an immediate effect.

VAR gcRatio := 1.0;              (* collector work / mutator work *)

On the average, for every page allocated by the mutator, the collector will copy gcRatio pages. Increase the ratio to keep the heap smaller; decrease it to spend less time in the collector.

VAR incremental := TRUE;         (* incremental collection *)

The collector can be incremental or stop-and-copy. Incremental collection has much smaller interruptions of service, but takes more total time and more space.

Assume there are ``A'' pages of accessible objects. If incremental is FALSE, the heap must contain up to A * (2 + 1 / gcRatio) pages. If incremental is TRUE, the heap must contain up to A * (2 + 2 / gcRatio) pages. In other words, to keep the same space bounds, gcRatio must be twice as large in the incremental case.

If compiler support is enabled the collector will behave as if incremental = TRUE.

Use incremental collection when the program is interactive. Stop-and-copy collection gives better total throughput.

VAR generational := TRUE;        (* generational collection *)

Generational collection causes most collections to take much less time than specified above, while using only a little more memory. Generational collection has the greatest benefit when the program has a large number of accessible objects, but most new objects are discarded shortly after they are allocated.

If compiler support is enabled the collector will behave as if generational = TRUE.

Generational collection almost always leads to performance improvement.

There is an optional ``background'' mode, which extends incremental mode with a background thread that moves collection ahead in the absence of program activity. The background thread is tuned to cause insignificant interruption of other activities, but may therefore move the collection forward quite slowly.

PROCEDURE StartBackgroundCollection();

Starts the background thread, if not already started

There is an optional ``foreground'' mode, which extends incremental mode with a foreground thread that collects on behalf of mutators. Allocating mutators occasionally yield to this thread to ensure that collection makes progress.

PROCEDURE StartForegroundCollection();

Starts the foreground thread, if not already started

PROCEDURE DisableVM();

This function does nothing and is only present for source * compatibility with older cm3.

END RTCollectorSRC.