Reference Counting

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:

    If we define a sign as an exact reference, it must include symbol because a symbol is an exact reference too. The difference seems to be that a sign is an exact reference to something definite and a symbol an exact reference to something indefinite.
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    But counting up to two
    Is harder to do....
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