The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Apr. 04, 2000
Filed:
May. 05, 1998
John Clarence Endicott, Rochester, MN (US);
Daniel Rodman Hicks, Byron, MN (US);
Elliot Karl Kolodner, Haifa, IL;
Robert Carl Seemann, Rochester, MN (US);
International Business Machines Corporation, Armonk, NY (US);
Abstract
A computer system, program product, and method of managing weak references with a concurrent mark sweep collector inhibit access, while processing weak references, to only those weak references whose referenced objects have not yet been determined to be strongly-reachable (i.e., reachable other than through a weak reference) during a current collection cycle. As such, access to specific weak references during processing thereof by a concurrent mark sweep collector is selectively inhibited to ensure synchronization for all weak references without necessarily stopping the execution of all program threads that attempt to access such weak references while executing in a computer system, thereby minimizing the processing overhead of managing weak references and improving system performance.