Re: Does dropping objects really free memory?

[Paul Johnson]

It seems possible you have a memory leak.  I've got one too.  This
happens when you drop a list without removing the members that need to
be removed, or if you forget to drop indexes or other things you create.

I think also that if, in a zone, you use allocBlock to grab some dynamic
memory, you have to write a drop method for that class to explicitly
drop that block.  

I am just about to try installing the new edition of dmalloc to find how
it works with swarm.  In case you want to do the same, perhaps we can
compare notes. The first time I did this, I found it difficult and wrote
down the procedure:


http://www.santafe.edu/projects/swarm/archive/list-archive.9811/0113.html

In case somebody (Marcus) knows if the changes in swarm will make
dmalloc no longer useful, please notify me asap!

Fabio Mascelloni wrote:
> 
> In each step of my simulation, the Agents involved have to perform a G.A. on
> a population represented by an Array object.In each generation, the old
> population is replaced by a new one (traversing the array and performing the
> - atOffset: put: ; method), so the old objects become garbage (they're no
> more referenced).
> The initial population is created in a separate Zone that is allocated at
> the beginning of each step and dropped after the G.A has been performed.
> However,though the entire Zone is dropped at each step, memory usage
> increases constantly ( with an 8 agents simulation, after about 60 minutes
> of execution Windows NT task manager says it's using  about 76400 K !).
> What could be the reason?
> Fabio.
> 
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-- 
Paul E. Johnson                       email: address@hidden
Dept. of Political Science            http://lark.cc.ukans.edu/~pauljohn
University of Kansas                  Office: (785) 864-9086
Lawrence, Kansas 66045                FAX: (785) 864-5700

                  ==================================
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   to day usage of Swarm.  For list administration needs (esp.
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   with "help" in the body of the message.