[REBOL] Re: Memory usage
From: Christophe:Coussement:mil:be at: 19-Oct-2005 9:41
Hi list,
I did also have a lot of trouble with REBOL garbage collecting strategy.
Assuming 'recycle would work like a C deallocation function, I used it a
lot into some of my resources-consuming scripts. But one day I stated
the following:
>> stats
== 4183470
>> my-string: make string! 10000000
== ""
>> stats
== 13186209 ;-> + 10MB
>> recycle
>> stats
== 13186065 ;-> Gee! Didn't work at all ???
After a few try-and-errors, I found that first using a 'make on the word
previously to the call to 'recycle, solves the problem:
(...continuing previous code snippet)
>> my-string: make none! none
== none
>> stats
== 13186577 ;-> just checking: nothing happened
>> recycle
>> stats
== 3185714 ;-> memory obviously freed
You do not have to use a 'make none! To achieve this: a call to 'make
string! "" or whatever does the job too.
I solve most of my memory problem using this 'free-memory function:
free-memory: func ['w][set :w make none! none recycle]
You can find an interesting thread about this subject on the French
REBOL forum: http://www.codeur.org/forum/message.php?ID_Sujet=2500
Now, I do not know if this is the regular use of 'recycle, as meant by
RT. Or if this is a buggy thing... Perhaps have the list's gurus some
thoughts about that?
Anyway, I hope this will help :-)
==christophe
