Contaminated garbage collection

We describe a new method for determining when an object can be garbage collected. The method does not require marking live objects. Instead, each object X is dynamically associated with a stack frame M, such that X is collectable when M pops. Because X could have been dead earlier, our method is conservative. Our results demonstrate that the method nonetheless identifies a large percentage of collectable objects. The method has been implemented in Sun's Java™ Virtual Machine interpreter, and results are presented based on this implementation.