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Programming Concepts Intermediate

What is Garbage Collection?

An automatic memory management process that identifies and reclaims memory no longer in use by a program.

Garbage collection (GC) frees developers from manual memory management. The GC periodically identifies objects that are no longer reachable from any reference and reclaims their memory. This prevents memory leaks and dangling pointer bugs.

Common algorithms include reference counting (Python, PHP), mark-and-sweep (JavaScript), and generational collection (Java, .NET). GC introduces some overhead and occasional pauses. Languages like C/C++ and Rust use manual or ownership-based memory management instead.

Related Terms

Observer Pattern
A design pattern where an object (subject) maintains a list of dependents (observers) that are notified automatically of state changes.
Hash Table
A data structure that maps keys to values using a hash function, providing average O(1) time complexity for lookups, insertions, and deletions.
Design Pattern
A reusable solution template for commonly occurring problems in software design.
Dependency Injection
A design pattern where objects receive their dependencies from external sources rather than creating them internally.
Unit Testing
Testing individual components or functions of a program in isolation to verify they work correctly.
Stack vs Heap
Two memory regions: the stack stores function call data with automatic cleanup, while the heap stores dynamically allocated objects.
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