What term describes the automatic reclamation of memory that is no longer referenced by programs?

• A. Garbage Collection
• B. Slack Space
• C. Preservation
• D. Identification

Answer: (A)

Garbage collection is the automatic reclamation of memory that is no longer referenced by programs. It lets the runtime identify objects that can no longer be reached from active code and frees that memory so it can be reused, without requiring you to manually deallocate it. This helps prevent memory leaks and dangling pointers, making software easier to write and more robust. There are common approaches like tracing collectors, which follow references from roots to find all reachable objects, and reference counting, which frees an object when there are no remaining references. The other terms don’t describe this process—Slack Space is unused storage on disks, Preservation is a general term for maintaining data or systems, and Identification is not about freeing memory.