Controlling the garbage collector (GC) at RT?

[Martin Egholm Nielsen <martin at egholm-nielsen dot dk>]

Hi there,

Does GCJ somehow support controlling the GC at runtime?
That is, e.g. configure it for different behaviour:

1) Run as you usually do
2) Please do not not run unless it is really needed
3) Don't run at all (let application die if it must)

Point 2 is actually what I'm after, but I'm reconsidering (as I'm 
writing) if it actually makes any sense.

This could be implemented in some semaphore (reference-counting) 
acquire/release way:

// Seen in one thread:
try
{
  GCController.pleaseDontDoItNow();
  ...
} // try
finally
{
  GCController.goAheadIDontCareAnymore();
} // finally

Hence, when the "pleaseDont"-count reaches 0, the GC is free to run.

The reason for posing this "question", is that I have an application 
with several (two) threads with some "critical" (looping) sections, in 
which I would rather not have the GC taking over control.
Hence, I plan on having each thread signal when it is out of its 
critical section, and "force" a GC when the threads reach a common 
moment of pausing (which _will_ happen - there's only two critical 
threads, and they are somewhat correlated in behaviour).

Is this a very bad idea?

BR,
 Martin Egholm