[chuck-users] Chuck garbage collection needs a manual

Kassen signal.automatique at gmail.com
Mon Sep 6 17:08:51 EDT 2010


2010/9/6 Tambet <qtvali at gmail.com>

> Hi again!
>

Hey Tambet!


>
> As Chuck lacks garbage collection,


Well.... There is a partially implemented garbage collector, based on
reference counting. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, sometimes it's
count is off and objects disappear. Primitives (like int, float....) should
be freed once their scope seizes to exist.


> it's probably The language, which needs a manual about garbage collection -
> I mean, a manual about lack of it.
>

Maybe, What we need is GC to be finished, then documented.

First of all; given a more or less typical modern system CPU cost will be a
much bigger bottleneck than memory. Unchuck UGens you no longer need from
their connection to the dac and/or blackhole and they won't take cpu any
more. Have unused Shreds exit or simply reach the end of their code.

If you really want to manually remove objects you no longer need you can do
this;
null @=> my_object;

That should force it to be collected. I'm not sure that also affects UGens
but I am sure (as I just tested) that this won't affect currently connected
UGens.


> Googling "chuck programming garbage collection" gives these pages:
>
>    - The Ultimate Top 25 Chuck Norris “The Programmer” Jokes
>    - Chuck Esterbrook: Geek of the Week
>    - Java Programming - Hump Day OT
>
>
Yes, this is a rather arcane field. GC is turning out to be harder than
anticipated, or so it seems.



> It would be good to know, how much memory things take, how to keep memory
> from growing full etc.



On Unix you can run "top" or some recourse monitor that you may have. On
Windows there's the task manager which should show how much memory you are
using. In practice I've only once seen this come close to becoming a issue
and that involved non-realtime rendering  of a ray-tracing reverb which in
one (misguided) design used tens of thousands of shreds. If this become a
real issue that you actually have we could look at your code and see
what optimizations could be made.


Don't get me wrong; we do need GC and leaks will be a issue for applications
like installations that need to run unattended for a long time using many
samples, but for most applications on a system build in the past 5 years you
should be fine.


> For example - if I close something, will it release memory?
>
>
Could you give a example of closing something? I'm not sure what you mean.

Yours,
Kas.
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