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Re: Memory leak or Absorption

To: REALbasic NUG <realbasic-nug at lists dot realsoftware dot com>
Subject: Re: Memory leak or Absorption
From: Kimball Larsen <kimball at kimballlarsen dot com>
Date: Fri, 30 Nov 2007 07:27:35 -0700
Delivered-to: listarchive at realsoftware dot com
Delivered-to: realbasic-nug at lists dot realsoftware dot com
References: <47501A55 dot 4070007 at earthlink dot net>
On Nov 30, 2007, at 7:12 AM, Eric Richards wrote:

> Hi -
>
> With the talk of memory leak on the nug I was thinking,
> wouldn't a more accurate term be memory absorption ?

No, the correct term for this behavior is memory leak, and has been  
for ages:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memory_leak

>
> When someone says " my app has a memory leak"
> what comes to mind is there app is losing or has less
> memory being used, not more.
>
> This might sound strange, but does anyone
> have an example that would show a "memory leak"
> that works on Rb 5.5.5 and OS 9 ?
>
> I just want to see for my self, first hand experience.
>

Well, the basic gist of it is that your program allocates memory,  
uses that memory, and then when done with it, does not free it up to  
be re-used by the operating system.  Thus, from the OS point of view,  
your program is consuming more and more and more memory without  
freeing it back up.  This is why it is called a memory leak - because  
it is from the point of view of the OS.

-- Kimball 
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