OCaml write barrier
Stephen Weeks
MLton@sourcelight.com
Mon, 27 Nov 2000 09:18:43 -0800 (PST)
> I'm curious that the `write barrior' in OCaml GC is SO expensive (Leroy says
> that 70% of the time in the simple example is in `cross-generation checks'.)
> The sum loop isn't doing any writes at all.
Yeah, there was a post that explained the slowdown (3X relative to MLton) for
the sum loop as being because of boxing integer arrays.
> Do you know OCaml uses a Chez-
> style byte vector of possible cross-space pointers, or does it use a MUCH
> more expensive store list. The latter never made any real sense to me since
> every store cons's onto the list.
I would be surprised if it did the latter, but I don't know. There's a few
papers on their GC at http://pauillac.inria.fr/ocaml/papers.html.