An Efficient Garbage Compaction Algorithm

Abstract

The garbage compaction algorithm described works in linear time and, for the most part, does not require any work space. It combines marking and compaction into a two-step algorithm that is considerably faster than, for example, Morris's method. The first step marks all nongarbage cells and, at the same time, rearranges the pointers such that the cells can be moved; the second step performs the actual compaction. © 1982, ACM. All rights reserved.