From: Tim Hunter <TimHunter@...>
Date: 2008-03-31T10:45:00+09:00
Subject: Re: GC help

Joey Marino wrote:
> I found out it is not the 3rd party code. I am downloading images (~320,000
> ct.) as strings, and saving each to a file. The file handlers are getting
> closed. Using the Dike gem, I think I determined the bulk of the leaked
> memory is in these string variables. But what I don't understand is that the
> variables containing the strings are local to a method of an object and
> should be unreferenced when that method is done, right? I've invoked GC at
> the end of the method and after each iteration that the method gets called.
> I've even set the strings to nil after they've been saved to a file and
> before gc is called. The app is using 2G of ram and 4G of swap before it
> runs of out memory and crashes about 1/3rd of the way through. I'm really
> starting to doubt Ruby's ability to do memory intensive work. Any ideas?

Many people have used Ruby for long-running tasks that use a lot of 
memory. If Ruby was not collecting unused strings, don't you think 
somebody would have noticed it by now?

Actually, I think you've ruled out Ruby being the problem. What else is 
running? Could it be using up the memory?

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