A note on Cheney's nonrecursive list-compacting algorithm

Authors:
David C. Walden
Affiliations:
Bolt Beranek and Newman Inc., Cambridge, MA
Venue:
Communications of the ACM
Year:
1972

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A nonrecursive list compacting algorithm

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Abstract

Cheney's list-compacting algorithm [1] goes into an infinite loop when it traces a circular list consisting exclusively of non-items. While it may be reasonable to say that such lists should not exist, it would be very difficult to legislate out of existence programs which illegally create such lists because of bugs, and it would not do for the garbage collector to break down in this instance.