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Garbarge collection for Prolog based on WAM

Authors:

Dan SahlinAuthors Info & Claims

Communications of the ACM, Volume 31, Issue 6

Pages 719 - 741

https://doi.org/10.1145/62959.62968

Published: 01 June 1988 Publication History

Abstract

The Warren abstract machine (WAM) has become a generally accepted standard Prolog implementation technique. Garbage collection is an important aspect in the implementation of any Prolog system. A synopsis of the WAM is presented and then marking and compaction algorithms are shown that take advantage of WAM's unique use of the data areas. Marking and compaction are performed on both the heap and the trail; both use pointer reversal techniques, which obviate the need for extra stack space. However, two bits for every pointer on the heap are reserved for the garbage collection algorithm. The algorithm can work on segments of the heap, which may lead to a significant reduction of the total garbage collection time. The time of the algorithms are linear in the size of the areas.

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Digital Library

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Cited By

Nguyen PDemoen B(2013)Representation sharing for prologTheory and Practice of Logic Programming10.1017/S147106841100042113:1(71-106)Online publication date: 1-Jan-2013
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1017/S1471068411000421
Wielemaker JSchrijvers TTriska MLager T(2012)Swi-prologTheory and Practice of Logic Programming10.1017/S147106841100049412:1-2(67-96)Online publication date: 1-Jan-2012
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1017/S1471068411000494
Carlsson MMildner P(2012)Sicstus prolog-the first 25 yearsTheory and Practice of Logic Programming10.1017/S147106841100048212:1-2(35-66)Online publication date: 1-Jan-2012
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1017/S1471068411000482
Show More Cited By

Index Terms

Garbarge collection for Prolog based on WAM
1. Software and its engineering
  1. Software notations and tools
    1. General programming languages
      1. Language types
2. Theory of computation

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Published In

cover image Communications of the ACM

Communications of the ACM Volume 31, Issue 6

June 1988

149 pages

ISSN:0001-0782

EISSN:1557-7317

DOI:10.1145/62959

Editor:
P. J. Denning
NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA

Issue’s Table of Contents

Copyright © 1988 ACM.

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 01 June 1988

Published in CACM Volume 31, Issue 6

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Cited By

Nguyen PDemoen B(2013)Representation sharing for prologTheory and Practice of Logic Programming10.1017/S147106841100042113:1(71-106)Online publication date: 1-Jan-2013
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1017/S1471068411000421
Wielemaker JSchrijvers TTriska MLager T(2012)Swi-prologTheory and Practice of Logic Programming10.1017/S147106841100049412:1-2(67-96)Online publication date: 1-Jan-2012
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1017/S1471068411000494
Carlsson MMildner P(2012)Sicstus prolog-the first 25 yearsTheory and Practice of Logic Programming10.1017/S147106841100048212:1-2(35-66)Online publication date: 1-Jan-2012
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1017/S1471068411000482
Morales JCarro MHermenegildo MAntoy SAlbert E(2008)Comparing tag scheme variations using an abstract machine generatorProceedings of the 10th international ACM SIGPLAN conference on Principles and practice of declarative programming10.1145/1389449.1389455(32-43)Online publication date: 15-Jul-2008
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/1389449.1389455
Vandeginste RDemoen B(2007)Incremental copying garbage collection for WAM-based Prolog systemsTheory and Practice of Logic Programming10.1017/S147106840600278X7:5(505-536)Online publication date: 1-Sep-2007
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1017/S147106840600278X
Costa V(2007)Prolog performance on larger datasetsProceedings of the 9th international conference on Practical Aspects of Declarative Languages10.1007/978-3-540-69611-7_12(185-199)Online publication date: 14-Jan-2007
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/978-3-540-69611-7_12
Boortz KSahlin D(2006)A compacting garbage collector for unidirectional heapsImplementation of Functional Languages10.1007/BFb0055441(358-374)Online publication date: 28-May-2006
https://doi.org/10.1007/BFb0055441
Lopes RCosta V(2005)Improving memory usage in the BEAMProceedings of the 7th international conference on Practical Aspects of Declarative Languages10.1007/978-3-540-30557-6_12(143-157)Online publication date: 10-Jan-2005
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/978-3-540-30557-6_12
Suzuki MKoide HTerashima M(2005)MOA — A fast sliding compaction scheme for a large storage spaceMemory Management10.1007/3-540-60368-9_25(197-210)Online publication date: 1-Jun-2005
https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-60368-9_25
Bevemyr JLindgren T(2005)A simple and efficient copying garbage collector for prologProgramming Language Implementation and Logic Programming10.1007/3-540-58402-1_8(88-101)Online publication date: 28-May-2005
https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-58402-1_8
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