>> Also, if it does, how does it deal with memory segmentation? This >> question bothers me because I've been trying to implement a moving >> garbage collector, and am not sure how to deal with updating all >> program pointers to objects on the heap, and thought perhaps an answer >> to this question would give me some ideas. > > As I understand it, Python primarily uses reference counting, with a > mark and sweep scheme for cycle breaking tacked on as an afterthought.
That's not exactly true, i.e. it isn't mark-and-sweep, but some similar scheme that allows incremental collection without write barriers. This particular scheme heavily relies on refcounting itself (specifically, an object is garbage in a certain generation when all references to it come from the same generation). As for the consequences of the scheme (i.e. no compaction), you are right. Regards, Martin -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
