The Tricolor Algorithm
Explore the principles of Go's tricolor mark-and-sweep garbage collection algorithm. Understand how objects are categorized by color sets and how the collector identifies unreachable objects to optimize memory usage without halting program execution. This lesson covers key components like write barriers, mutators, and the role of goroutines in concurrent garbage collection.
The operation of the Go GC is based on the tricolor algorithm. Note that the tricolor algorithm is not unique to Go and can be used in other programming languages as well.
Introduction to the tricolor algorithm
Strictly speaking, the official name for the algorithm used in Go is the tricolor mark-and-sweep algorithm. It can work concurrently with the program and uses a write barrier. This means that when a Go program runs, the Go scheduler is responsible for the scheduling of the application as well as the GC, which also runs as a goroutine. This is as if the Go scheduler ...