Re: Next Version of Lua?

[Ralph Hempel <rhempel@...>]

Enrico Colombini wrote:
> Ralph Hempel wrote:
> > The current default garbage collector parameters request a doubling
> > of the current RAM usage when RAM runs out. 
>
> I may be wrong, but I interpret the manual description of 'pause' as 
> meaning that the collector merely doubles the allocation threshold where 
> a new collection will forcibly take place. I can't find sbrk() in the code.

Yes, you are correct. The call to sbrk() happens when your own heap gets
exhausted :-)

> Anyway, as I said last week, I'm not sure I really understand how this 
> mechanism works. To avoid the risk of memory overrun in an embedded 
> system, I ended out checking allocation level periodically with 'count' 
> and forcing a gc at a fixed threshold, then later checking it again 
> (suggestions for a better way are welcome).

A tunable parameter for the garbage coellctor that either works the
way it currently does (as a percentage) or as an absolute value would
be in interesting compromise.

Ralph