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digitalmars.D - Removing the Lock for Small GC Allocations: Clarification of GC

reply "dsimcha" <dsimcha yahoo.com> writes:
I have a plan to avoid the GC lock for most small (<1 page) GC 
allocations.  I hope to have a pull request within a week or two, 
in time for the next release.  There's one detail I need 
clarified by Sean, Walter or someone who designed the D GC.

Currently small allocations are handled by popping a block off a 
free list, if a block is available.  I plan to make each page 
owned by a single thread, and make the free lists thread-local.  
The array of free lists (one for each power of two size) is 
stored in the Gcx struct.  The easiest way to make this array 
thread-local is to move it out of the Gcx struct and make it 
global.  Is there any reason why >1 instance of Gcx would exist 
(maybe as an implementation detail of shared libraries, etc.)?  
If not, what's to point of having the Gcx struct instead of just 
making its variables global?
Dec 31 2011
next sibling parent =?UTF-8?B?QWxleCBSw7hubmUgUGV0ZXJzZW4=?= <xtzgzorex gmail.com> writes:
On 31-12-2011 23:28, dsimcha wrote:
 I have a plan to avoid the GC lock for most small (<1 page) GC
 allocations. I hope to have a pull request within a week or two, in time
 for the next release. There's one detail I need clarified by Sean,
 Walter or someone who designed the D GC.

 Currently small allocations are handled by popping a block off a free
 list, if a block is available. I plan to make each page owned by a
 single thread, and make the free lists thread-local. The array of free
 lists (one for each power of two size) is stored in the Gcx struct. The
 easiest way to make this array thread-local is to move it out of the Gcx
 struct and make it global. Is there any reason why >1 instance of Gcx
 would exist (maybe as an implementation detail of shared libraries,
 etc.)? If not, what's to point of having the Gcx struct instead of just
 making its variables global?
AFAIK dynamic libraries don't have the same GC instance running as an executable that links to it. Don't quote me on this, though. - Alex
Jan 01 2012
prev sibling parent "Martin Nowak" <dawg dawgfoto.de> writes:
On Sat, 31 Dec 2011 23:28:09 +0100, dsimcha <dsimcha yahoo.com> wrote:

 I have a plan to avoid the GC lock for most small (<1 page) GC  
 allocations.  I hope to have a pull request within a week or two, in  
 time for the next release.  There's one detail I need clarified by Sean,  
 Walter or someone who designed the D GC.

 Currently small allocations are handled by popping a block off a free  
 list, if a block is available.  I plan to make each page owned by a  
 single thread, and make the free lists thread-local.  The array of free  
 lists (one for each power of two size) is stored in the Gcx struct.  The  
 easiest way to make this array thread-local is to move it out of the Gcx  
 struct and make it global.  Is there any reason why >1 instance of Gcx  
 would exist (maybe as an implementation detail of shared libraries,  
 etc.)?  If not, what's to point of having the Gcx struct instead of just  
 making its variables global?
Not for shared libraries. You should probably wrap multiple TLS variables in a struct and put only a reference into TLS to reduce the expense of thread local access.
Jan 01 2012