[gclist] boehm (et al.) gc and assembly language [platform indep. x86 -- for now :)]

[jd marrow]

i'm not sure whether this is an appropriate forum for this question, so
please feel free to disregard it. :)

i'm working on a specialized x86 assembler, and was thinking about making
use of boehm (et al)'s conservative gc [henceforth BGC]; is there anything
in particular that i should be aware of?

more specifically, i wonder about the following:

:: do i need to pay attention to anything other than data alignment in my
use of BGC? (i assume that 32bit alignment of pointers is a requirement on
x86 platforms...)

:: some of the generated code will be self-modifying; does (or can i make)
BGC scan executable 'data'? what does BGC normally scan, and can i control
this?

:: has anyone looked into requirement/procedures for optimal exploitation of
BGC?

:: are there any other [equally free] alternatives to BGC? (this being a
personal experiment, i'd like to minimize costs... :) i'd also be interested
in references to performance comparisons between BGC and other -- free or
not -- GC systems...

thanx much for any comments,

jdm

;; jean-david marrow
;; jd@riverbed.com