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8.7 Overflow

If the amount allocated from the previous mark and sweep operation is less than :minimum-for-sweep , the GC does not perform a mark and sweep. Instead it allocates a small-objects buffer in the big-chunk area (the second segment in the first generation). The minimum and maximum sizes of this buffer are specified by :minimum-overflow and :maximum-overflow , which can be set by set-gc-parameters . If the GC fails to find a buffer of this size, it looks for a smaller buffer, and if that fails it enlarges the big-chunk area (and the process size) by the amount needed to allocate a buffer of the size of the currently allocated area in generation 0, up to a maximum amount specified by :maximum-overflow .


LispWorks User Guide - 18 Feb 2003

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