Referencing and retention in block-structured coroutines

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Publication Type technical report
School or College College of Engineering
Department Computing, School of
Creator Lindstrom, Gary E.
Other Author Soffa, Mary Lou
Title Referencing and retention in block-structured coroutines
Date 1979
Description The combination of coroutines with recursive procedures is characteristic of many modern higher-level languages offering advanced control structures (e.g. SIMULA-67, SL5, Interlisp, etc.). We say a language has block-structured coroutines (BSCRs) when static nesting considerations govern the usage of this control combination. Starting with the BSCR control description work of Wang and Dahl, this paper pursues further the implications of static program structure on BSCR programs in a compilation-oriented setting. Disciplines on BSCR reference assignment and individual control actions are defined, offering enhanced implementability and program comprehensibility. Of particular interest is a scope-based discipline on "detach" operations, which avoids the formation of idle chain subheads, an implementationally undesirable condition. The retention requirements of BSCRs are analyzed under a range of possible remote accessibility conditions, and two deletion strategies are then defined, keyed to these requirements. The first uses a special form of scope-sensitive reference counting, and the second does mark-sweep garbage collection, again exploiting static program structure. Space and time estimates for both methods are given, along with avenues for continuing research.
Type Text
Publisher University of Utah
Subject Block-structured; BSCR
Subject LCSH Coroutines (Computer programs); Recursive programming
Language eng
Bibliographic Citation Lindstrom, G. E., & Soffa, M. L. (1979). Referencing and retention in block-structured coroutines. 1-48. UUCS-79-116.
Series University of Utah Computer Science Technical Report
Relation is Part of ARPANET
Rights Management ©University of Utah
Format Medium application/pdf
Format Extent 2,784,083 bytes
Identifier ir-main,16120
ARK ark:/87278/s6pn9q5m
Setname ir_uspace
ID 705876
Reference URL https://collections.lib.utah.edu/ark:/87278/s6pn9q5m
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