gcix

gcix provides a cross-platform implementation of the Immix garbage collector

Why another GC?

The only GC that is providing a VM/language agnostic API is currently provided by boehm gc (see bdwgc). There is currently no Immix GC implementation in C++ that can be used/integrated as easily as the boehm gc. There are some Immix gc implementations around. but they are often tightly integrated into a specific VM/language like Haxe, Rubinius...etc

Goals

• Immix GC as a service
• Provide a "reference" implementation in C++11 of the Immix GC and eventually RC Immix
• Provide a VM/language agnostic garbage collector using latest research (Immix/RC)
• Support for Sticky Immix (semi-generational)
• Support for interior pointers
• Precise pointers scanning: semi-conservative on stack and precise on heap.
• Several unit tests to ensure the GC is correctly implemented and tracking regressions (Note: unit tests are currently broken. Changes on latest internals not backported to tests)
• When enough mature make a join-venture with SharpLang project

Current state

The project is currently under development and is in a very early alpha state (and well, no development on it for the past month!).

What has been done so far:

• A GlobalAllocator, providing a chunk allocator (a chunk is composed of several Immix blocks),
• A ThreadLocalAlloactor, to be used by mutator GC (i.e. the program)
• Basic multithreading support (GlobalAllocator is thread safe)
• Naive marking and collector

What is under development:

• Implements marking by using SSB (Sequential Store Buffers)
• Start to work on implementing a basic write barrier infrastructure

Help the project

If you are interested, don't hesitate to contact me via the issues tab or alexandre_mutel at live.com

License

BSD-Clause2 license