From: Ralph Shnelvar <ralphs@...32.com>
Date: 2009-11-10T07:46:33+09:00
Subject: Re: Good or best way to allocate a large array

Florian,

If there is no use count, how does Ruby know that there are no
references to the object that should be freed?

Ralph

Monday, November 9, 2009, 3:02:37 PM, you wrote:

FF> Ralph Shnelvar wrote:
>> Marnen,
>>
>> Unless "scope" means something different in Ruby than it does in other
>> languages, it would appear that the garbage collector cannot possibly
>> free memory when something goes out of scope but, instead, when the
>> UseCount goes to zero.
>>   
FF> Except that uses aren't counted in Ruby. Ruby has a mark-and-sweep 
FF> garbage collector. When Ruby runs out of memory a garbage collection run
FF> is triggered. If there aren't any references to the objects in question
FF> left, they aren't reachable from the root set and thus not marked in the
FF> first phase of GC, in the second phase they will then (too be 
FF> conservative: most likely) be freed.




-- 
Best regards,
 Ralph                            mailto:ralphs@dos32.com