[Mono-dev] GC precision

[Miguel de Icaza]

This is now controlled with MONO_GC_PARAMS, you can set the variable to

stack-mark=precise

To use precise stack marking.   There are a few reasons that this is not
the default:

   - Legacy: many applications embedding Mono assumed that icalls/pinvokes
   that manipulated managed objects did not require pinning, so we would break
   those apps.

   - Keeping the stack maps requires more memory.

Miguel


On Thu, Aug 7, 2014 at 2:10 PM, Zoltán Tóth <zo1980 at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi, I am new here and to Mono. I am considering adopting Mono as my main
> platform of programming. I am interested in the precision of the Mono
> garbage collector.
>
> A few months ago I already wrote to the mono-gc list, but have not got
> answer, looks like that list is inactive.
>
> Mono seems to have an exceptionally good description [1] of its GC. From
> that I could learn that even the "precise" GC "still scans some parts of
> the stack conservatively, these include the native frames below the last
> managed frame, the last managed frame, frames belonging to managed->native
> transitions, and all native frames above the first managed frame."
>
> I suspect that that description is several years old. As being
> [admittedly] paranoid of imprecise garbage collection, I hope that Mono may
> have got a totally precise GC already and it is just not documented,
> advertised. Is this the case? Or the documentation is still correct and the
> GC is still imprecise?
>
>
> [1] - http://www.mono-project.com/Generational_GC#Precise_Stack_Marking
>
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>
>
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