Understanding how garbage collection works is crucial for understanding how your applications manage their memory.
Garbage collection is an automatic process that frees up memory that is no longer being used by your program. It's a fundamental part of how modern operating systems and languages manage memory efficiently.
The garbage collector's job is to identify objects that are no longer reachable – objects that are no longer in use by any active parts of your application.
It then reclaims that memory, making it available for other objects.
– Objects are allocated and held in memory. – When an object is no longer reachable, it's eligible for collection.
– Garbage collection algorithms are implemented to identify and reclaim unused memory.
Imagine a program is holding a large array of objects. The garbage collector will periodically find objects that have been modified but are no longer needed, and release the memory they occupy.
– Efficient memory usage – Prevents memory leaks – Improves overall system performance – Allows for more efficient use of system resources.