From: Robert Klemme <shortcutter@...>
Date: 2008-06-18T15:28:58+09:00
Subject: Re: Can I find out the memory used by an object?

On 17.06.2008 19:23, Robert Dober wrote:
> On Tue, Jun 17, 2008 at 5:53 PM, Robert Klemme
> <shortcutter@googlemail.com> wrote:
>> On 17 Jun., 12:42, Marc Heiler <sheve...@linuxmail.org> wrote:
>>> Good question :)
>>>
> I think it could be defined, however I do not know if this is useful,
> maybe when considering running on low memeory devices and a
> deterministic garbage collector.

Exactly what I mean: a simple definition is more often than not useless 
for practical purposes but a useful definition is complex and hard to 
automate (i.e. if you want to implement a mechanism that reports on used 
memory).

> I would define the memory to be used by an object as the number of
> bytes that have been (re)allocated for it and that could be freed by
> the GC if there were no more references to that object. I would not
> care at all if collecting this object
> makes other objects collectable.

This is pretty much the definition I posted as well.  At least this is 
what I mean.  I like your definition better for its improved technical 
precision over mine.

> This however is where Robert's probably right, if you have to worry
> over memory consumption than you have to pretty
> much sure about releasability of other objects too.

Exactly.

> But I disagree humbly with my homonym that the question does not make
> sense at all ;).

Um, where exactly did I say that?

Kind regards

	robert


PS: Thanks for the "homonym"!  Learn something new every day. :-)