Run-time storage management

Abstract

The generation of executable machine code is obviously completely conditioned by the storage allocation techniques which are to be used at run-time. We have tried to give some idea of the basic storage allocation mechanisms, without going into too much detail. It should be noted that an extremely wide variety of techniques exist, and many interesting ideas have not been discussed here. However, most of the variety stems from efforts to improve the basic themes that we have developped, or to adapt them to particular machines.

One point of importance is the very close relationship between storage allocation mechanisms and the type of operations which may exist in the language. Small changes in language design can lead to large changes in the architecture of the compiler and in the complexity of the run-time system.