[MLton] GC help
Umut Acar
umut.research@gmail.com
Sun, 14 Aug 2005 18:32:30 -0500
Thanks for the information Stephen,
I will play some more and let you know.
BTW, what is the maximum heap size for MLton?
Umut
On 8/14/05, Stephen Weeks <sweeks@sweeks.com> wrote:
>
> > My applications have lots of live data and use lots of side effects.
> > I would like to understand the effect that different G.C. policies
> > might have on the running time.
>
> There is a little bit of info at
>
> http://mlton.org/GarbageCollection
>
> The first thing to try is running your application with
>
> @MLton gc-summary --
>
> This will tell you how much time is spent in GC, and break the
> collections down by type so you know which kind are happening.
>
> What matters is not so much the absolute amount of live data, but the
> amount relative to the memory available. By default, MLton is very
> aggressive in grabbing memory so it can keep a high ratio (16) of heap
> size to live data size. This enables it to cost-effectively use
> copying collection. Only when there isn't enough memory available
> does MLton switch to generational collection. And only when memory
> gets really tight does it switch to mark compact.
>
> If there's enough memory available, you should only see about 10-15%
> of your time spent in GC, and no further tuning will be required.
>
> > Is there a way to turn generational collector off completely (use just
> > the copying collector)?
>
> Yes, you can compile with
>
> -mark-cards false
>
> This causes the mutator code to not insert card marking statements at
> pointer assignments. Since the generational collector relies on card
> marking, it is thus unable to run. -mark-cards false has the added
> benefit of not doing the card marking statements, although we've never
> measured a significant cost to them (more than a percent or two).
>
> Beware in coming from the SML/NJ world, where the GC seems to cost a
> lot and occasionally exhibit pathological behavior (this from informal
> observations). Card marking in MLton is very fast, and the
> generational GC is too. So even in the odd circumstance when
> generational GC does kick in, you won't see the kinds of problems you
> might with SML/NJ.
>
> > In general, what are the ways to control G.C.?
>
> The documented controls are at
>
> http://mlton.org/RunTimeOptions
>
> The undocumented controls are in processAtMLton() in runtime/gc.c in
> the sources.
>
> http://mlton.org/cgi-bin/viewsvn.cgi/mlton/trunk/runtime/gc.c?view=markup
>
> Relevant undocumented controls are:
>
> copy-generational-ratio
> grow-ratio
> live-ratio
> mark-compact-generational-ratio
> mark-compact-ratio
> nursery-ratio
>
> You can use this to tune when (and whether) the GC switches between
> different collection strategies. If you want details on any specific
> undocumented control and it isn't clear from gc.c, I can have a look
> and figure out exactly what's going on -- but I don't know them off
> the top of my head.
>
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