So when I say in the sweep phase, the memory space is reclaimed there are more than one way of reclaiming the memory space. You can mark the memory as free space and can use that to allocate new objects. This is what typically happens in Mark and Sweep algorithm. There is another variant of Mark and Sweep algorithm and it is called Mark and Compact algorithm. Instead of just marking the space as free space, during the compact phase, all the active objects are moved together and all the free space is grouped together. So what is the advantage of doing this? Well, obvious advantage is improved performance and improved object allocation time. So if all the free space is grouped together, then memory space for objects can be allocated using contiguous blocks of memory units and therefore, leads to better object allocation time as there is no fragmentation.
Ok, so is this the best GC Algorithm available. The answer is no. There are some other variants that use the concept of generational garbage collection. The common observation in object lifetimes is typically an application creates a huge number of short lived objects of small size. Therefore, only a few of the objects live longer and only a few objects are bigger. So how can we take advantage of this observation? Well, the whole heap space is divided into three generations - Young generation, Old generation and Permanent generation. Young generation as the name suggests holds the newly created objects. When the object stays in young generation heap for a long time, then they are moved/tenured to old generation heap space. So what is this permanent generation. Permanent generation holds the objects that are not meant to be Garbage collected very often. Say for example, each compiled class has a corresponding class object representing the class in the Java runtime environment. These objects are not meant to be garbage collected often. So they are present in the permanent generation.
Young generation heap space is further divided into eden space and survivor space. Eden space is the first point of entry into the heap space for any new object. If the object is active during the garbage collection, then they are moved to the survivor space. When the object stays in survivor space for a certain number of garbage collection cycles, then they are tenured to the old generation. If the object is big enough to be accomodated in the eden space or survivor space, then they are directly allocated on the old generation heap space. Typically, young generation heap space is smaller but often garbage collected. In case of old generation heap space, it is allocated larger space but not often garbage collected.
Ok, so is this the best GC Algorithm available. The answer is no. There are some other variants that use the concept of generational garbage collection. The common observation in object lifetimes is typically an application creates a huge number of short lived objects of small size. Therefore, only a few of the objects live longer and only a few objects are bigger. So how can we take advantage of this observation? Well, the whole heap space is divided into three generations - Young generation, Old generation and Permanent generation. Young generation as the name suggests holds the newly created objects. When the object stays in young generation heap for a long time, then they are moved/tenured to old generation heap space. So what is this permanent generation. Permanent generation holds the objects that are not meant to be Garbage collected very often. Say for example, each compiled class has a corresponding class object representing the class in the Java runtime environment. These objects are not meant to be garbage collected often. So they are present in the permanent generation.
Young generation heap space is further divided into eden space and survivor space. Eden space is the first point of entry into the heap space for any new object. If the object is active during the garbage collection, then they are moved to the survivor space. When the object stays in survivor space for a certain number of garbage collection cycles, then they are tenured to the old generation. If the object is big enough to be accomodated in the eden space or survivor space, then they are directly allocated on the old generation heap space. Typically, young generation heap space is smaller but often garbage collected. In case of old generation heap space, it is allocated larger space but not often garbage collected.
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