Tail Recursion Without Space Leaks

Tail Recursion Without Space Leaks (1991)

by Richard Jones

Venue:	Journal of Functional Programming
Citations:	29 - 0 self

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Datum	Value	Source
TITLE	Tail Recursion Without Space Leaks	user correction - Legacy Corrections
AUTHOR NAME	Richard Jones	SVM HeaderParse 0.1
AUTHOR AFFIL	Computing Laboratory; University of Kent at Canterbury; Canterbury,	SVM HeaderParse 0.2
AUTHOR ADDR	Kent, CT2 7NF	SVM HeaderParse 0.1
ABSTRACT	The G-machine (Johnsson, 1987; Peyton Jones, 1987) is a compiled graph reduction machine for lazy functional languages. The G-machine compiler contains many optimisations to improve performance. One set of such optimisations is designed to improve the performance of tail recursive functions. Unfortunately the abstract machine is subject to a space leak---objects are unnecessarily preserved by the garbage collector. This paper analyses why a particular form of space leak occurs in the G-machine, and presents some ideas for fixing this problem. This phenomena in other abstract machines is also examined briefly. 1. Compilers for conventional imperative languages How might a simple Pascal procedure, like the one shown below, be implemented ? procedure f; begin ... g; end; Typically the procedure which called f would set up a new stack frame for it, including such information as return addresses and any arguments passed to f. In turn, a naïve implementation of f might set up a further stack...	user correction - Legacy Corrections
YEAR	1991	user correction - Legacy Corrections
VENUE	Journal of Functional Programming	INFERENCE
VENUE TYPE	JOURNAL	INFERENCE
VOLUME	2	INFERENCE
CITATIONS	12 found	ParsCit 1.0