Flexibly deleting objects in a resource constrained environment

Abstract

Scheme for the distinguishing of reachable objects and non-reachable objects used by an object-based application in a system with volatile memory of limited size. The object-based application operates on n objects whereby Z objects thereof are root objects. The following steps are carried out for each root object: (a) traversing from said root object to any other object that can be reached from said root object; (b) marking all objects that were reached from said root object and storing, while marking, in said volatile memory a description of the path from said root object to the currently visited object; if the marking phase reaches an object and the respective path does not fit into said volatile memory, then this object is not marked but identified as an object which has to be processed later; and continuing the marking phase until all root objects identified as objects which have to be processed later are processed.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.