TYPE-SPECIFIC STORAGE MANAGEMENT (PH.D. Thesis)

This dissertation explores the limits of integrating garbage collection (GC) and other memory management techniques into `industrial-strength'' statically-typed object-oriented programming languages (OOPLs). GC cannot entirely replace man- ual reclamation in such languages. However, providing GC as an alternative has many benefits. We discuss various aspects of the integration of garbage collectors into programming languages such as C++. This thesis includes: - a comparison of the behavior of smart pointers with that of normal pointers, and examples of how smart pointers help integrate compiler- independent memory management algorithms into a program; - a presentation of fault interpretation, which is a technique for improv- ing certain algorithms (including some generational garbage collection algorithms) through a novel use of virtual memory protection, and, - a discussion of the memory management components we provide, which include: two garbage collectors, a precompiler and additional tools.