Research Region Based Memory Management for Imperative Languages

Research Region Based Memory Management for Imperative Languages

[Matt Davis]

Hello,
I am just trying to settle down on my PhD Computer Science dissertation
topic.  I want something low-level, compiler related, and more so
useful/practical.  I am considering region-based memory management, to show
memory efficiency and safety.  For imperative languages, such as c, this is
rather difficult from static-analysis alone (e.g. aliasing and weak-typing).
However, I do believe region-based management is possible.  If I were to take
something of this nature on for my topic, would it be valuable research, and is
it even worth the effort?  I am by far any kind of compiler guru, and figured
you all might know best.

The other option, would be to implement such concepts in a research language,
which can still be interesting, but I'm not sure how practical.

-Matt

Re: Research Region Based Memory Management for Imperative Languages

[Ian Lance Taylor]

Matt Davis <mattdavis9@gmail.com> writes:

> I am just trying to settle down on my PhD Computer Science dissertation
> topic.  I want something low-level, compiler related, and more so
> useful/practical.  I am considering region-based memory management, to show
> memory efficiency and safety.  For imperative languages, such as c, this is
> rather difficult from static-analysis alone (e.g. aliasing and weak-typing).
> However, I do believe region-based management is possible.  If I were to take
> something of this nature on for my topic, would it be valuable research, and is
> it even worth the effort?  I am by far any kind of compiler guru, and figured
> you all might know best.

Are you thinking of using the compiler to annotate memory allocation
calls with regions?  That seems worth investigating.  Perhaps you could
get some improvement in C++ by using regions to keep containers and the
objects they contain close together--I'm thinking C++ because it might
be easier for the compiler to detect the cases where it would be useful.

Thanks for your interest.  Perhaps somebody else has something more
intelligent to say.

Ian

Re: Research Region Based Memory Management for Imperative Languages

[Uday P. Khedker]

We have had a long term plan (which has not fructified until now) of
implementing a static analysis for improving garbage collection. Our
paper in TOPLAS (http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1290521) describes
our early work. The main bottle neck for our purpose is a good pointer
analysis and we have shifted our focus to that. Nothing shareable yet
on that front.

It may still be worthwhile implementing it using the existing pointer
analysis but I don't have the bandwidth for it. If someone wants to explore
improving dynamic allocation, this may be a good beginning. I will be
very happy to provide information.

Uday Khedker.

Matt Davis wrote, On Friday 27 August 2010 06:39 AM:
> Hello,
> I am just trying to settle down on my PhD Computer Science dissertation
> topic.  I want something low-level, compiler related, and more so
> useful/practical.  I am considering region-based memory management, to show
> memory efficiency and safety.  For imperative languages, such as c, this is
> rather difficult from static-analysis alone (e.g. aliasing and weak-typing).
> However, I do believe region-based management is possible.  If I were to take
> something of this nature on for my topic, would it be valuable research, and is
> it even worth the effort?  I am by far any kind of compiler guru, and figured
> you all might know best.
>
> The other option, would be to implement such concepts in a research language,
> which can still be interesting, but I'm not sure how practical.
>
> -Matt