Transparent garbage collection of resources

A method of executing a finalizer associated with an object when an execution of a program in a computer system no longer requires the object, the method comprising the steps performed by one or more other programs executing in the computer system of:

• automatically determining from the program that the execution will use the object;
• automatically modifying the program's behavior such that that the execution makes an entry for the finalizer in a registry;
• and
• automatically determining from the state of the execution that the execution is finished with the object and from the entry that the finalizer is to be executed and thereupon executing the finalizer in conjunction with freeing the object.

A method of automatically registering a resource used by an execution of

• a program in a computer system for release when the execution no longer requires the resource,
• the method comprising the steps performed by one or more other programs executing in the computer system of:
• automatically determining from the program that the execution will use the resource;
• and
• automatically modifying the program's behavior such that that the execution makes an entry for the resource in a registry, the entry being used when the execution is finished therewith to determine that the resource is to be released.

A method of automatically registering a finalizer associated with an object for execution when a program's execution in a computer system no longer requires the object,

• the method comprising the steps performed by one or more other programs executing in the computer system of:
• automatically determining from the program that the execution will use the object;
• and
• automatically modifying the program's behavior such that that the execution makes an entry for the finalizer in a registry, the entry being used when the execution is finished with the object to determine that the finalizer is to be executed in conjunction with freeing the object.

A garbage collector that automatically executes a finalizer associated with an object,

• the object being allocated during execution of a program and the finalizer being executed in conjunction with freeing the object,
• the garbage collector comprising:
• a registrar that registers the object in a registry of objects requiring execution of finalization code;
• a program modifier that automatically modifies the program prior to execution such that allocation of the object causes the registrar to register the object in the registry;
• and
• a registry reader that executes the finalizer in conjunction with freeing the object's memory when the registry so indicates,
• whereby the program need not be written for execution with the garbage collector.