2.1. Memory Management

Quirrel uses reference counting (RC) as primary system for memory management; however, the virtual machine (VM) has an auxiliary mark and sweep garbage collector that can be invoked on demand.

There are 2 possible compile time options:

• The default configuration consists in RC plus a mark and sweep garbage collector. The host program can call the function sq_collectgarbage() and perform a garbage collection cycle during the program execution. The garbage collector isn’t invoked by the VM and has to be explicitly called by the host program.

• The second a situation consists in RC only(define NO_GARBAGE_COLLECTOR); in this case is impossible for the VM to detect reference cycles, so is the programmer that has to solve them explicitly in order to avoid memory leaks.

The only advantage introduced by the second option is that saves 2 additional pointers that have to be stored for each object in the default configuration with garbage collector(8 bytes for 32 bits systems). The types involved are: tables, arrays, functions, threads, userdata and generators; all other types are untouched. These options do not affect execution speed.