> No, Ocaml's major GC (the garbage collection of the old generation) is
> not conservative; it is precise (it knows exactly where the pointers
> are), but is an incremental mark&sweep - with occasionnal call to the
> compactor whichs compacts the whole heap (including old stuff) by
> moving values & updating pointers.
>
> So I don't think Ocaml's GC could be easily patched to have the old GC
> work conservatively - hence avoiding the requirement of telling the
> runtime what are the pointers (ie CAMLlocal* & CAMLparam* macros).
>
> (I'm not sure that Nicolas Cannasse uses the "conservative" word in
> the established sense of the GC experts - perhaps my previous
> explanations where not clear enough).

I'm sorry I was mistaken about the 'conservative' word correct usage.
Please replace "conservative" by "not moving pointers" in my previous email.

Nicolas

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