article

Destructors, finalizers, and synchronization

Author:

Hans-J. BoehmAuthors Info & Claims

ACM SIGPLAN Notices, Volume 38, Issue 1

Pages 262 - 272

https://doi.org/10.1145/640128.604153

Published: 15 January 2003 Publication History

Abstract

We compare two different facilities for running cleanup actions for objects that are about to reach the end of their life.Destructors, such as we find in C++, are invoked synchronously when an object goes out of scope. They make it easier to implement cleanup actions for objects of well-known lifetime, especially in the presence of exceptions.Languages like Java[8], Modula-3[12], and C\#[6] provide a different kind of "finalization" facility: Cleanup methods may be run when the garbage collector discovers a heap object to be otherwise inaccessible. Unlike C++ destructors, such methods run in a separate thread at some much less well-defined time.Languages like Java[8], Modula-3[12], and C\#[6] provide a different kind of "finalization" facility: Cleanup methods may be run when the garbage collector discovers a heap object to be otherwise inaccessible. Unlike C++ destructors, such methods run in a separate thread at some much less well-defined time.We argue that these are fundamentally different, and potentially complementary, language facilities. We also try to resolve some common misunderstandings about finalization in the process. In particular:

The asynchronous nature of finalizers is not just an accident of implementation or a shortcoming of tracing collectors; it is necessary for correctness of client code, fundamentally affects how finalizers must be written, and how finalization facilities should be presented to the user.

An object may legitimately be finalized while one of its methods are still running. This should and can be addressed by the language specification amd client code.

References

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H.-J. Boehm. A garbage collector for C and C++. http://www.hpl.hp.com/personal/Hans_Boehm/gc/.

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ECMA. Standard ECMA-334: C# Language Specification. ECMA, December 2001.

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B. Hayes. Finalization in the collector interface. In International Workshop on Memory Management (IWMM 92, LNCS 637), pages 277--298, 1992.

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J. Horning, B. Kalsow, P. McJones, and G. Nelson. Some useful modula-3 interfaces. Technical Report 113, Digital Systems Research Center, December 1993.

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G. Nelson, editor. Systems Programming with Modula-3. Prentice-Hall, 1991.

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P. Rovner. On adding garbage collection and runtime types to a strongly-typed, statically-checked, concurrent language. Technical Report CSL-84-7, Xerox Palo Alto Research Center, July 1985.

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Cited By

Larus JRajwar RLarus JRajwar R(2022)Programming Transactional MemoryTransactional Memory10.1007/978-3-031-01719-3_2(15-52)Online publication date: 17-Oct-2022
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-01719-3_2
DAI ZMAO XLEI YWAN XBEN K(2013)Resco: Automatic Collection of Leaked ResourcesIEICE Transactions on Information and Systems10.1587/transinf.E96.D.28E96.D:1(28-39)Online publication date: 2013
https://doi.org/10.1587/transinf.E96.D.28
Mao XDai Z(2013)Light-weight resource leak testing based on finalisersIET Software10.1049/iet-sen.2013.00267:6(308-316)Online publication date: 1-Dec-2013
https://doi.org/10.1049/iet-sen.2013.0026
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Index Terms

Destructors, finalizers, and synchronization
1. Software and its engineering
  1. Software notations and tools
    1. Compilers
      1. Dynamic compilers
  2. Software organization and properties
    1. Contextual software domains
      1. Operating systems
        Memory management
        Garbage collection
        Process management
        Multithreading

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Published In

cover image ACM SIGPLAN Notices

ACM SIGPLAN Notices Volume 38, Issue 1

January 2003

298 pages

ISSN:0362-1340

EISSN:1558-1160

DOI:10.1145/640128

Issue’s Table of Contents

POPL '03: Proceedings of the 30th ACM SIGPLAN-SIGACT symposium on Principles of programming languages
January 2003
308 pages
ISBN:1581136285
DOI:10.1145/604131
General Chair:
Alex Aiken
University of California, Berkeley, CA
,
Program Chair:
Greg Morrisett
Cornell University

Copyright © 2003 ACM.

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Association for Computing Machinery

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Publication History

Published: 15 January 2003

Published in SIGPLAN Volume 38, Issue 1

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https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-01719-3_2
DAI ZMAO XLEI YWAN XBEN K(2013)Resco: Automatic Collection of Leaked ResourcesIEICE Transactions on Information and Systems10.1587/transinf.E96.D.28E96.D:1(28-39)Online publication date: 2013
https://doi.org/10.1587/transinf.E96.D.28
Mao XDai Z(2013)Light-weight resource leak testing based on finalisersIET Software10.1049/iet-sen.2013.00267:6(308-316)Online publication date: 1-Dec-2013
https://doi.org/10.1049/iet-sen.2013.0026
Dillig IDillig TYahav EChandra SJones RBlackburn S(2008)The CLOSERProceedings of the 7th international symposium on Memory management10.1145/1375634.1375636(1-10)Online publication date: 7-Jun-2008
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/1375634.1375636
Baramashetru CTapia Tarifa SOwe O(2024)Integrating Data Privacy Compliance in Active Object LanguagesActive Object Languages: Current Research Trends10.1007/978-3-031-51060-1_10(263-288)Online publication date: 29-Jan-2024
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Tamimi AHahn ARoy S(2020)Cyber Threat Impact Analysis to Air Traffic Flows Through Dynamic Queue NetworksACM Transactions on Cyber-Physical Systems10.1145/33774254:3(1-22)Online publication date: 12-Mar-2020
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Zhang ZDeng RYau DCheng PChen J(2020)On Hiddenness of Moving Target Defense against False Data Injection Attacks on Power GridACM Transactions on Cyber-Physical Systems10.1145/33727514:3(1-29)Online publication date: 12-Mar-2020
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Cohen NPetrank E(2017)Limitations of Partial CompactionACM Transactions on Programming Languages and Systems10.1145/299459739:1(1-44)Online publication date: 6-Mar-2017
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Benitez SMurray TStefan D(2016)Short PaperProceedings of the 2016 ACM Workshop on Programming Languages and Analysis for Security10.1145/2993600.2993604(69-75)Online publication date: 24-Oct-2016
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Dai ZMao XChen LLei Y(2014)Automatic recovery from resource exhaustion exceptions by collecting leaked resourcesJournal of Zhejiang University SCIENCE C10.1631/jzus.C130035215:8(622-635)Online publication date: 9-Aug-2014
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