Garbage-Collection Safety at PLDI 2023
21 June 2023
My paper Garbage-Collection Safety for Region-Based Type-Polymorphic Programs was accepted for presentation at PLDI 2023 in Orlando on June 21.
Combining compiler-directed memory reclamation with garbage collection requires care: the collector must never encounter a pointer to memory that has already been freed. This paper identifies a flaw in earlier theory that also affected a real implementation. A revised region type system tracks collection effects through higher-order, polymorphic code, repairing the problem while simplifying function types. The result supports the safe combination of region inference and partly tag-free garbage collection.