[gclist] gclist-digest V1 #40

[Malcolm Cohen]

Fergus Henderson wrote:
> Malcolm Cohen wrote:
> > 
> > Fortran 90 and its successors-to-come are prime candidates for GC.  In
> > particular, the current standard for Fortran (IS 1539-1) has an auxiliary
> > standard (IS 1539-2) for varying-length string handling, which requires either
> >   (a) compiler support
> >   (b) garbage collection
> > or
> >   (c) the user not to be worried about memory leakage
> 
> Hmm... I don't know Fortran 90, but for variable-length strings, isn't
> simple reference counting sufficient? 

As I said in the bit you quoted (!), "compiler support" is sufficient.

Reference counting (which certainly is a garbage collection technique, I do not
know why you think it necessary to deny it) or more sophisticated forms of
garbage collection are only required if the compiler does not implement
varying-length strings as an intrinsic (known to the compiler) type, and if
the user cares about (not) leaking memory.

Cheers,
-- 
...........................Malcolm Cohen, NAG Ltd., Oxford, U.K.
                           (malcolm@nag.co.uk)