In computer science, reference counting is a technique of storing the number of references, pointers, or handles to a resource such as an object, block of memory, disk space or other resource. It may also refer, more specifically, to a garbage collection algorithm that uses these reference counts to deallocate objects which are no longer referenced.
Read more about Reference Counting: Use in Garbage Collection, Advantages and Disadvantages, Graph Interpretation, Dealing With Inefficiency of Updates, Dealing With Reference Cycles, Variants of Reference Counting
Famous quotes containing the words reference and/or counting:
“In sum, all actions and habits are to be esteemed good or evil by their causes and usefulness in reference to the commonwealth, and not by their mediocrity, nor by their being commended. For several men praise several customs, and, contrarily, what one calls vice, another calls virtue, as their present affections lead them.”
—Thomas Hobbes (1579–1688)
“Love is sinister,
is mean to us in separation;
makes our thin bodies thinner.
This fellow Death
lacks mercy
and is good at counting our days.
And Master,
you, too, are subject
to the plague of jealousy
so think:
how could womenfolk,
soft as sprouts,
live like this?”
—Amaru (c. seventh century A.D.)