From: Tim Hunter <rmagick@...>
Date: 2008-09-20T02:00:55+09:00
Subject: Re: IRB + C Extension = Memory Loss

Ryan Bates wrote:
> I'm having difficult making a simple C extension. The struct's memory
> seems to go missing after a while when using IRB. I'm no C expert, so
> I'm probably doing something wrong as far as memory allocation is
> concerned. Here's the problem and the code:
> 
> http://gist.github.com/11611
> 
> Notice the greeting goes away after calling "h.greet" a number of
> times? This only seems to happen in IRB and not through a ruby script.
> Any idea why? I'm assuming it has something to do with Ruby's garbage
> collection, but I don't know how to solve it.
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Ryan

GC is collecting the greeting string because it thinks there are no 
references to it. Your hello_mark function needs to identify the 
greeting string object as "in use". From the Pickaxe:

"The mark routine will be called by the garbage collector during its 
``mark'' phase. If your structure references other Ruby objects, then 
your mark function needs to identify these objects using 
rb_gc_mark(value)."
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