where many Common Lisp functions reference memory on the 3600. Knowledge of this behavior allows programmers to choose data types and structures that minimize memory references for a given application.

The function	references its argument(s)
aref	always
arrayp	never
cdr	when the argument is not nil
eq	never
eql	when both arguments are extended numbers
equal	under most circumstances
integerp	when the argument is an extended number
keywordp	when the argument is a symbol
length	when the argument is not nil
list	never (new memory is allocated)
numberp	never
stringp	when the argument is an array
symbol-plist	always
symbolp	never
1+	when the argument is an extended number

One technique for improving paging performance is to use a less general function that does not reference memory instead of a specific function that does reference memory. A common example is to use eql instead of equal when possible. A more subtle example is to use arrayp rather than stringp, when it is known that the object being tested cannot be a nonstring array. Similarly, symbolp can replace keywordp, when appropriate. (Note that the paging behavior of Common Lisp functions is determined more by the implementation than the language specification.)

Declarations can be used to improve performance in all implementations. One declaration that can reduce memory references on the Symbolics 3600 is the sys:array-register declaration. This declares arrays to be commonly referenced and caches array dimensions and other consistency information on the stack in "fast" memory, removing the need to reference the array header every time the array is accessed. Similarly, the sys:downward-function and sys:downward-funarg declarations can be used to specify that a lexical closure is only being passed downward. This allows the function to be allocated on the stack in "fast" memory, rather than on the heap.



Garbage Collection

Garbage collection is the process that automatically performs object deallocation (storage reclamation). Although garbage collection removes the burden of memory