Memory Management and Garbage Collection

In the ATOAM, there are five data areas: the program area, the heap, the control stack, the trail stack, and the table area. The program area contains, besides programs, a symbol table that stores information about the atoms, functions, and predicate symbols in the programs. The heap stores terms that are created during execution. The control stack stores activation frames that are associated with predicate calls. The trail stack stores updates of those words that must be unbound upon backtracking. The tail area is used to store tabled subgoals and their answers.