Re: Browser Memory Leaks

[Thorbjørn Ravn Andersen <thunderaxiom@xxxxxxxxx>]

Nathan Andelin skrev  den 30-07-2008 22:48:
> I gather that if you declare a variable in JavaScript, then later set its value to null, that memory becomes subject to garbage collection.  But one trap I seemed to fall into pertained to storing references to DOM objects in JavaScript arrays, and setting the array length to 0, but not explicitly destroying the DOM elements referenced from array elements.  That seemed to cause a memory leak.
>   
Garbage collection can only collect those objects which are not 
referenced from _anywhere_.  By having references in arrays or in event 
handlers, this requirement is not fulfilled so they keep hanging around.

This is a frequent issue in Java too, where you cannot explicitly tell 
an object to go away forever.