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Borrow, copy or steal?: loans and larceny in the orthodox canonical form

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Anthony J. H. SimonsAuthors Info & Claims

ACM SIGPLAN Notices, Volume 33, Issue 10

Pages 65 - 83

https://doi.org/10.1145/286942.286948

Published: 01 October 1998 Publication History

Abstract

Dynamic memory management in C++ is complex, especially across the boundaries of library abstract data types. C++ libraries designed in the orthodox canonical form (OCF) alleviate some of the problems by ensuring that classes which manage any kind of heap structures faithfully copy and delete these. However, in certain common circumstances, OCF heap structures are wastefully copied multiple times. General reference counting is not an option in OCF, since a shared body violates the intended value semantics; although a copy-on-write policy can be made to work with borrowed heap structures. A simpler ownership policy, based on larceny, allows low-level memory manager objects to steal heap structures from temporary variables, in properly isolated circumstances. Various strategies for regulating theft are presented, ranging from pilfer-constructors to locks on heap data. Larceny has similarities with other transfer of ownership patterns, but is more a core implementation technique designed to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of OCF-conformant libraries.

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Cited By

Tang XJärvi J(2012)Summary-based data-flow analysis that understands regular composite objects and iteratorsACM SIGAPP Applied Computing Review10.1145/2432546.243254912:4(36-47)Online publication date: 1-Dec-2012
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2432546.2432549
Tang XJärvi JOssowski SLecca P(2012)Exploiting regularity of user-defined types to improve precision of program analysesProceedings of the 27th Annual ACM Symposium on Applied Computing10.1145/2245276.2232059(1743-1750)Online publication date: 26-Mar-2012
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2245276.2232059
Hu MZhang Y(2022)An empirical study of the Python/C API on evolution and bug patternsJournal of Software: Evolution and Process10.1002/smr.250735:2Online publication date: 6-Sep-2022
https://doi.org/10.1002/smr.2507
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Index Terms

Borrow, copy or steal?: loans and larceny in the orthodox canonical form
1. Information systems
  1. Information storage systems
    1. Storage management
2. Software and its engineering
  1. Software notations and tools
    1. General programming languages
      1. Language types
    2. Software libraries and repositories
  2. Software organization and properties
    1. Contextual software domains
      1. Operating systems
        File systems management
        Memory management

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Copyright © 1998 ACM.

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Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 01 October 1998

Published in SIGPLAN Volume 33, Issue 10

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Cited By

Tang XJärvi J(2012)Summary-based data-flow analysis that understands regular composite objects and iteratorsACM SIGAPP Applied Computing Review10.1145/2432546.243254912:4(36-47)Online publication date: 1-Dec-2012
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2432546.2432549
Tang XJärvi JOssowski SLecca P(2012)Exploiting regularity of user-defined types to improve precision of program analysesProceedings of the 27th Annual ACM Symposium on Applied Computing10.1145/2245276.2232059(1743-1750)Online publication date: 26-Mar-2012
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2245276.2232059
Hu MZhang Y(2022)An empirical study of the Python/C API on evolution and bug patternsJournal of Software: Evolution and Process10.1002/smr.250735:2Online publication date: 6-Sep-2022
https://doi.org/10.1002/smr.2507
Hu MZhang YHuang WXiong Y(2021)Static Type Inference for Foreign Functions of Python2021 IEEE 32nd International Symposium on Software Reliability Engineering (ISSRE)10.1109/ISSRE52982.2021.00051(423-433)Online publication date: Oct-2021
https://doi.org/10.1109/ISSRE52982.2021.00051
Hu MZhang Y(2020)The Python/C API: Evolution, Usage Statistics, and Bug Patterns2020 IEEE 27th International Conference on Software Analysis, Evolution and Reengineering (SANER)10.1109/SANER48275.2020.9054835(532-536)Online publication date: Feb-2020
https://doi.org/10.1109/SANER48275.2020.9054835
Smirnov I(2007)Raw pointers in application classes of C++ considered harmfulACM SIGPLAN Notices10.1145/1288258.128826242:4(23-31)Online publication date: 1-Apr-2007
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/1288258.1288262

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