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Rationale

Introduction

Root Pointer introduces the concept of set where it is defined to be a one or many memory blocks referencing each other allocated on the heap pointed to by one or many root_ptr<T>s allocated elsewhere by the application. Each set is consequently composed of a list of all memory blocks constituting it and a node_proxy linking each allocation and other potential node_proxys.

For example:

Cyclicism

Therefore whenever a node_proxy contained within a root_ptr<T> is about to be destroyed, the deallocation of each memory block composing the set is enforced. Thus whether the set was composed of memory blocks referencing each other in a cyclic way or not, all of them will be subject to destruction and deallocation indifferent from the cyclicism problem presented by the reference counters. As we can see in the following example, the node_proxy is destroyed and consequently every elements composing the set will be destructed and deallocated as well:

Union

A set will be unified with another set whenever one of its member is found to reference a member from a different set. Once two sets are unified they will stay unified even if the new reference responsible for unifying the sets is once again disjointed.


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