Garbage Collection

Garbage Collection in c

C does not have built-in garbage collection like some other programming languages (e.g., Java or C#) that automatically handle memory deallocation.
In C, memory management is primarily done manually by the programmer using functions like malloc, calloc, realloc, and free from the <stdlib.h> header.
However, there are some techniques and libraries available in C that can help with managing memory and providing garbage collection-like behavior.
These techniques require additional code or external libraries to implement the garbage collection functionality.

Here are a few approaches:

Reference counting is a technique where each dynamically allocated object keeps a count of the number of references to it.
When the count reaches zero, indicating that no more references exist, the memory associated with the object is freed.
This approach requires careful bookkeeping and can suffer from circular reference issues.

The BDWGC is a conservative garbage collector for C and C++ programs.
It provides automatic memory management by tracking memory allocations and freeing objects that are no longer reachable.
The BDWGC library can be linked with your C program, allowing you to benefit from garbage collection-like behavior.

There are several third-party libraries available that provide garbage collection-like functionality for C.
These libraries handle memory management and garbage collection automatically, relieving the programmer from manual memory management tasks.
Some popular libraries include "libgc" (Boehm GC), "r3x" (Reference Counted Garbage Collector), and "tgc" (Thread-Safe Garbage Collector).