Memory Management in C: Shared Pointers with Garbage Collection

Overview

This project implements shared pointer functionality with garbage collection in C. It provides a mechanism for managing memory allocation and deallocation while ensuring proper reference counting and garbage collection to prevent memory leaks.

Files

• sharedptrfwd.h: Header file containing declarations for shared pointer functionality and synchronization mechanisms.
• sharedptrfwd.c: Implementation of shared pointer functionality including memory allocation, reference counting, and garbage collection.
• main.c: Main file containing example usage and testing of the shared pointer functionality.

Usage

To use the shared pointer functionality in your project:

1. Include the sharedptrfwd.h header file in your source files.
2. Use the provided functions for memory allocation (sync_with_dynamic_allocator()), loading allocator (allocator_load()), moving references (move_ref()), and other operations as needed.

Implementation Details

• Memory Allocation: Memory is allocated using sync_with_dynamic_allocator() function, which synchronizes memory allocation with proper reference counting.
• Reference Counting: Reference counting is maintained for each allocated memory block to track the number of references.
• Garbage Collection: Garbage collection is triggered periodically to reclaim memory blocks with zero references, preventing memory leaks.
• Logging: Events and system statistics are logged to a file (last_test.log) for debugging and monitoring purposes.

Compilation and Execution

Compile the project using a C compiler such as GCC or clang:

clang main.c sharedptrfwd.c -o driver -lpthread
./driver.exe

Dependencies

• pthread.h: For thread synchronization.
• windows.h: For Windows-specific functionality (optional, used for system stats).
• time.h: For time-related functions.
• stdbool.h, stdarg.h, string.h, unistd.h, malloc.h: Standard C libraries.