Package core.alloc.gc

"Garbage collection" is not somthing Onyx has. Even things like reference counted pointers is not something Onyx can do, because of Onyx's simpler semantics. That being said, with custom allocators and some careful design, GC is "achievable". This allocator wraps another allocator. With each allocation, a little extra space is allocated to build a linked list of all allocations made. This way, when the memory is done being used, everything can be freed automatically.

The auto macro makes this allocator very easy to use:

core.alloc.gc.auto() {
    // Every allocation here will automatically be freed
}

GCLink

GCLink :: struct {
    prev: &GCLink;
    next: &GCLink;
    magic_number: u32;
}

GCState

GCState :: struct {
    backing_allocator: Allocator;
    first: &GCLink;
}

auto

auto :: macro () -> void

auto :: macro (body: Code) -> i32

clear

clear :: (hs: &GCState) -> void

make

make :: (backing: Allocator) -> GCState

make_allocator

make_allocator :: (hs: &GCState) -> Allocator

untrack

untrack :: (ptr: rawptr) -> bool

Removes an allocation from the garbage collectors tracking list, so it will not be freed automatically.