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+Tweaking the refc GC
+====================
+
+Cycle collector
+---------------
+
+The cycle collector can be en-/disabled independently from the other parts of
+the garbage collector with `GC_enableMarkAndSweep` and `GC_disableMarkAndSweep`.
+
+
+Soft real-time support
+----------------------
+
+To enable real-time support, the symbol `useRealtimeGC`:idx: needs to be
+defined via `--define:useRealtimeGC`:option: (you can put this into your config
+file as well).
+With this switch the garbage collector supports the following operations:
+
+  ```nim
+  proc GC_setMaxPause*(maxPauseInUs: int)
+  proc GC_step*(us: int, strongAdvice = false, stackSize = -1)
+  ```
+
+The unit of the parameters `maxPauseInUs` and `us` is microseconds.
+
+These two procs are the two modus operandi of the real-time garbage collector:
+
+(1) GC_SetMaxPause Mode
+
+    You can call `GC_SetMaxPause` at program startup and then each triggered
+    garbage collector run tries to not take longer than `maxPause` time. However, it is
+    possible (and common) that the work is nevertheless not evenly distributed
+    as each call to `new` can trigger the garbage collector and thus take  `maxPause`
+    time.
+
+(2) GC_step Mode
+
+    This allows the garbage collector to perform some work for up to `us` time.
+    This is useful to call in the main loop to ensure the garbage collector can do its work.
+    To bind all garbage collector activity to a `GC_step` call,
+    deactivate the garbage collector with `GC_disable` at program startup.
+    If `strongAdvice` is set to `true`,
+    then the garbage collector will be forced to perform the collection cycle.
+    Otherwise, the garbage collector may decide not to do anything,
+    if there is not much garbage to collect.
+    You may also specify the current stack size via `stackSize` parameter.
+    It can improve performance when you know that there are no unique Nim references
+    below a certain point on the stack. Make sure the size you specify is greater
+    than the potential worst-case size.
+
+    It can improve performance when you know that there are no unique Nim
+    references below a certain point on the stack. Make sure the size you specify
+    is greater than the potential worst-case size.
+
+These procs provide a "best effort" real-time guarantee; in particular the
+cycle collector is not aware of deadlines. Deactivate it to get more
+predictable real-time behaviour. Tests show that a 1ms max pause
+time will be met in almost all cases on modern CPUs (with the cycle collector
+disabled).
+
+
+Time measurement with garbage collectors
+----------------------------------------
+
+The garbage collectors' way of measuring time uses
+(see ``lib/system/timers.nim`` for the implementation):
+
+1) `QueryPerformanceCounter` and `QueryPerformanceFrequency` on Windows.
+2) `mach_absolute_time` on Mac OS X.
+3) `gettimeofday` on Posix systems.
+
+As such it supports a resolution of nanoseconds internally; however, the API
+uses microseconds for convenience.
+
+Define the symbol `reportMissedDeadlines` to make the
+garbage collector output whenever it missed a deadline.
+The reporting will be enhanced and supported by the API in later versions of the collector.
+
+
+Tweaking the garbage collector
+------------------------------
+
+The collector checks whether there is still time left for its work after
+every `workPackage`'th iteration. This is currently set to 100 which means
+that up to 100 objects are traversed and freed before it checks again. Thus
+`workPackage` affects the timing granularity and may need to be tweaked in
+highly specialized environments or for older hardware.
+
+
+Thread coordination
+-------------------
+
+When the `NimMain()` function is called Nim initializes the garbage
+collector to the current thread, which is usually the main thread of your
+application. If your C code later spawns a different thread and calls Nim
+code, the garbage collector will fail to work properly and you will crash.
+
+As long as you don't use the threadvar emulation Nim uses native thread
+variables, of which you get a fresh version whenever you create a thread. You
+can then attach a GC to this thread via
+
+  ```nim
+  system.setupForeignThreadGc()
+  ```
+
+It is **not** safe to disable the garbage collector and enable it after the
+call from your background thread even if the code you are calling is short
+lived.
+
+Before the thread exits, you should tear down the thread's GC to prevent memory
+leaks by calling
+
+  ```nim
+  system.tearDownForeignThreadGc()
+  ```
+
+
+Keeping track of memory
+=======================
+
+If you need to pass around memory allocated by Nim to C, you can use the
+procs `GC_ref` and `GC_unref` to mark objects as referenced to avoid them
+being freed by the garbage collector.
+Other useful procs from [system](system.html) you can use to keep track of memory are:
+
+* `getTotalMem()` Returns the amount of total memory managed by the garbage collector.
+* `getOccupiedMem()` Bytes reserved by the garbage collector and used by objects.
+* `getFreeMem()` Bytes reserved by the garbage collector and not in use.
+* `GC_getStatistics()` Garbage collector statistics as a human-readable string.
+
+These numbers are usually only for the running thread, not for the whole heap,
+with the exception of `--mm:boehm`:option: and `--mm:go`:option:.
+
+In addition to `GC_ref` and `GC_unref` you can avoid the garbage collector by manually
+allocating memory with procs like `alloc`, `alloc0`, `allocShared`, `allocShared0` or `allocCStringArray`.
+The garbage collector won't try to free them, you need to call their respective *dealloc* pairs
+(`dealloc`, `deallocShared`, `deallocCStringArray`, etc)
+when you are done with them or they will leak.
+
+
+
+Heap dump
+=========
+
+The heap dump feature is still in its infancy, but it already proved
+useful for us, so it might be useful for you. To get a heap dump, compile
+with `-d:nimTypeNames`:option: and call `dumpNumberOfInstances`
+at a strategic place in your program.
+This produces a list of the used types in your program and for every type
+the total amount of object instances for this type as well as the total
+amount of bytes these instances take up.
+
+The numbers count the number of objects in all garbage collector heaps, they refer to
+all running threads, not only to the current thread. (The current thread
+would be the thread that calls `dumpNumberOfInstances`.) This might
+change in later versions.