[LLVMdev] open source multithreaded garbage collector suitable for LLVM applications?

[Andrew Haley]

Basile STARYNKEVITCH wrote:

> Does any know about some opensource multithread-compatible (or 
> concurrent) garbage collector library, if possible suitable for LLVM?
> 
> (I mean that I want several mutator threads; the collector can be 
> stoptheworld or concurrent ....)
> 
> H.Boehm's conservative GC is multithread compatible, but seems quite 
> slow (allocation is about the time of a C malloc).

It's true that the allocation path in the Boehm GC isn't as fast as
some, but overall I don't think that the collector itself performs
badly.  It's been carefully tuned over many years on a wide range
of systems, and I think it's extremely unlikely that a much simpler
approach will in generally result in better performance.

It's ferociously hard to benchmark things like this, because it all
depends critically on the allocation pattern of your application.
A tuned precise copying collector such as those used in the HotSpot
VM might do better than a more general-purpose tool, as you'd expect,
but it will need accurate type information to do so.

Andrew.