Compiler Interface to Garbage Collector
Garbage collector needs to know
- reference roots
- reference fields
Need to generation information on
- global variables
- heap: tag each record with its type information, like class descriptors for dynamic method calls from Lecture 13
- stack: need stack map that determines for relevant points where references are on stack and registers
Note: sometimes compiler generates pointer arithmetic on references to access fields
- stack map must indicate those pointers, too, and indicate what their base pointers are