Pointers in a memory managed system

Abstract

Examples disclosed herein relate to pointers in a memory managed system. A garbage collection thread in a garbage collection system indicates via a first indication, that the garbage collection system has entered a marking phase, the garbage collection system managing a heap of memory. The garbage collection thread attempts to modify a conversion status variable, associated with a mutator thread belonging to a set of mutator threads associated with the garbage collection system, from a first conversion status value, indicating that the mutator thread is performing a weak pointer conversion operation, to a second conversion status value indicating that a handshake is required between the garbage collection thread and the mutator thread. The garbage collection thread determines that the conversion status variable does not contain the second conversion status value. The garbage collection thread determines that a set of pointers is empty. The garbage collection thread attempts to indicate, via a third indication, that the marking phase has ended, wherein indicating using the third indication comprises determining that no mutator thread belonging to the set of mutator threads has provided a second indication indicating that the indicating mutator thread intends to add a pointer to the set of pointers. The garbage collection thread determines that the marking phase has ended when the attempt is successful. The garbage collection thread indicates, via a fourth indication, that the garbage collection system is still in the marking phase when the attempt is successful.