[fpc-devel] Suggestion: reference counted objects

[Boian Mitov]

The biggest problem is when to initiate the detection and still maintain some form of determinism. That was the algorithm I proposed a while back, but it was not without a drawbacks. It would have affected performance.
There is not really a silver bullet for this as far as I know.

With best regards,
Boian Mitov

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From: Sven Barth 
Sent: Sunday, September 21, 2014 12:33 AM
To: FPC developers' list 
Subject: Re: [fpc-devel] Suggestion: reference counted objects

Am 21.09.2014 06:11 schrieb "Boian Mitov" <mitov at mitov.com>:
>
> Unless you implement something like the semi-deterministic GC that I proposed few years ago, weak pointers are the only solution for avoiding circular reference deadlock in ARC as far as I know. They are simply necessary evil, and a small one base on my current experience with them.

There are cycle detection algorithms that could be used upon a decrease of a reference count. Biggest problem is that they would be quite expensive (regarding performance) in case of complex object instance "graphs" like the LCL/VCL.
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