Garbagecollected

Garbage collection is a form of automatic memory management used by many programming languages. A garbage-collected environment tracks which objects are reachable from roots (such as the program stack and global references) and reclaims memory that is no longer accessible, making it available for allocation again.

Most garbage collectors use some form of tracing or reference counting. The most common approach is tracing: the collector marks all reachable objects and then either sweeps away the rest (mark-and-sweep) or compacts memory to reduce fragmentation (mark-and-compact or copying collectors). Generational collection splits the heap into young and old regions; most objects die young, so frequent collections of the young generation are paired with less frequent collections of older objects. Incremental and concurrent collectors aim to reduce pause times by performing work in small steps or alongside the program’s execution.

Languages such as Java, C#, Go, JavaScript, Python, and many others employ garbage collection, while languages like C and C++ typically require manual memory management. Garbage collection simplifies programming and reduces certain classes of memory errors, such as use-after-free and double frees, but it introduces latency due to pauses, potential memory overhead, and, in some strategies, complexities like object relocation or finalization.

Limitations include possible pause times, performance trade-offs, and the fact that garbage collection does not by itself manage non-memory resources; explicit handling is still needed for file handles, sockets, or other system resources. Some environments provide real-time or low-latency collectors to address time constraints, but no GC scheme is universally optimal for all workloads.