Memory management in a partially garbage-collected programming system

In an object oriented programming environment permitting cross-language invocations from an implicit memory management domain in which garbage collection is used to destroy objects and reclaim memory blocks to an explicit memory management domain in which reference counting is used to destroy objects and reclaim memory blocks, a mechanism to control object destruction, comprising:

• means for incrementing a reference count in an implementation object in the explicit memory management domain invoked by a calling object in the implicit memory management domain;
• means for returning a weak reference to the calling object;
• and
• means for decrementing the reference count upon destruction of the calling object.

A method for implementing a cross-language call from a client between an implicit memory management domain in which garbage collection is used to reclaim memory blocks and an explicit memory management domain in which reference counting is used to reclaim memory blocks, comprising:

• invoking a method for the call on a proxy object permitting cross-language access;
• converting the method to a language-independent token having a reference count of at least one;
• selecting a pointer for invoking an implementation side mechanism;
• and
• receiving a return value at the client.

A computer program product for implementing a call from an client between a programming environment in which garbage collection is used to reclaim memory blocks and an implementation in a programming environment in which garbage collection is not used to reclaim memory blocks, said computer program product comprising:

• a computer readable storage medium having computer readable code means embodied in said medium, said computer readable code means comprising:
• computer instruction means for invoking a method for the call on a proxy object permitting cross-language access;
• computer instruction means for converting the method to a language-independent token having a reference count of at least one;
• computer instruction means for selecting a pointer for invoking an implementation side mechanism;
• and
• computer instruction means for receiving a return value at the client.

A composite object constructed over at least first and second object oriented language environments, one of said environments having explicit memory management using reference counting to reclaim memory blocks and the other one of said environments having implicit memory management using garbage collection to reclaim memory blocks, comprising:

• a first class hierarchy for the composite object constructed in the first environment having a proxy base class and at least one derived implementation object;
• a second class hierarchy for the composite object constructed in the second environment having a base implementation class and at least one proxy derived class;
• and
• an interface mechanism for detecting a cross-language reference from a proxy class in the composite object and to select a pointer to a corresponding implementation class;
• wherein when a method invoked on the composite object in one of the language environments executes on a proxy class, that proxy class invokes a cross-language method on its corresponding implementation class in the second environment.