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Re: demonstrate that perl can give back memory to the OS

by Joost (Canon)
on Feb 27, 2009 at 17:05 UTC ( [id://746955]=note: print w/replies, xml ) Need Help??


in reply to demonstrate that perl can give back memory to the OS

Simple example: 
sub ps {
 system("/bin/ps", "-o", "pid,size,vsize", $$);
}

ps();

{
  my $x = " " x 2_000_000;
  ps();
  undef $x;
}

ps();

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This is perl, v5.10.0 built for i686-linux-thread-multi
"What should it profit a man, if he should win a flame war, yet lose his cool?"

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Re^2: demonstrate that perl can give back memory to the OS
by ikegami (Patriarch) on Feb 27, 2009 at 17:30 UTC

    An explanation:

    Lexical (my) variables and their string (or array) buffers aren't deallocated on scope exit whenever possible, only cleared. undef $var; (but not $var = undef;) deallocates the variable's string buffer.

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