Spin-less work-stealing for parallel copying garbage collection

Abstract

Computer-implemented methods, program storage devices, and systems are provided for object copying in a computer performing parallel copying garbage collection on deques using work stealing. A method includes acquiring, for original objects in a source deque space, a destination deque space to copy the original objects to, and copying, from the source deque space to the destination deque space, any original objects in the source deque space having a reference to other ones of the original objects, or having a pre-known structure for estimating copy overhead. The method also includes registering, together with an address to copy to, any original objects in the source deque space lacking the reference to the other ones of the original objects, or lacking the pre-known structure for estimating copy overhead. The method additionally includes setting, in the source space, forwarding pointers to copied ones of the original objects in the destination deque place. The method may further include copying registered objects based on a copy cost or overhead and a spin count, waiting in a spin loop, and trying to steal a task after the spin loop. An upper limit may be imposed on the number of original objects that can be registered to prevent a load balance loss. The parallel copying garbage collection may be performed on a heap of the computer.