LC Garbage Collection?

[Richard Gaskin]

Tom Glod wrote:

 >  Hi folks, I'm wondering if anyone can help me to understand
 > Livecode's garbage collection.  I am developing an application that
 > is intended to stay in memory and so I must watch memory consumption
 > carefully. I've had some instances where memory ran way out of
 > control.... but I found a couple of reasons for that...... one of
 > them being the dozen or so memory leaks that were fixed in 9.05.

Not sure if this is directly related, but some time ago I found that 
using and emptying large arrays successively resulted in a condition 
that looks like a leak, but was later characterized more specifically as 
fragmentation:

https://quality.livecode.com/show_bug.cgi?id=17434

Comment #4 there from Mark Waddingham shows a ramping up of usage that 
then levels off, but Comment #7 from Mark Talluto describes a scenario 
in which the effect over time can become so severe as to require ending 
the LC process.

I'm not familiar enough with the mechanics of fragmentation to offer any 
sort of fix for that.  As a scripter, I would just like memeory to be 
re-released when not in use, but I recognize that putting "just" before 
something doesn't necessarily make it easy to accomplish.

-- 
  Richard Gaskin
  Fourth World Systems
  Software Design and Development for the Desktop, Mobile, and the Web
  ____________________________________________________________________
  Ambassador at FourthWorld.com                http://www.FourthWorld.com