[ruby-talk:11947] memory management and object finalization in Ruby

Some questions pertaining to memory management in Ruby:

1. How is object finalization handled in Ruby?
   How can I write a class method that is called when a class instance
   is destroyed, for example, to close an open file pointer or to
   clean up some files that the instance has created?

2. What are the limits of Ruby garbage collection?
   Does the garbage collector close open file pointers in the objects
   that it reclaims?  What types of object finalization is the Ruby
   programmer responsible for (if any)?

3. How do I profile memory usage in Ruby?
   I'd like to know (a) how many bytes have been allocated, freed, and
   remain in use for each class and (b) how many bytes have been
   allocated inside each class method.  I'd also like to determine how
   many bytes a particular object will return to the pool when it is
   deallocated by the garbage collector.

   Is there anyway to track objects as they are reclaimed by the
   garbage collector, ie., a profilter that would report all objects
   as they are reclaimed, along with how much memory was reclaimed?

Thanks,
Eric