Eliminating memory fragmentation and garbage collection from the process of managing dynamically allocated memory

Abstract

A hardware or software apparatus, or a combination of both, is used for efficiently managing the dynamic allocation, access and release of memory used in a computational environment. This apparatus reduces, or preferably eliminates, the requirements for application housekeeping, such as garbage collection, by providing substantially more deterministic dynamic memory management operations. Housekeeping, or garbage collection, such as memory compaction and unused space retrieval, are reduced or eliminated. When housekeeping is eliminated, all dynamic memory invocations become substantially deterministic. The invention maps all or a part of a large, sparsely populated logical memory address space used to store dynamically allocated objects, to a smaller, denser physical memory address space. This invention results in a reduction in processing overhead in the computational environment, such as an operating system, which enhances performance, since the application no longer requires housekeeping functions from the environment. This process is particularly applicable to software components developed utilizing object oriented programming, which is more likely to use temporary memory allocation and release, thereby requiring significant housekeeping functions in the prior art.