


In the most common programming languages today, you can rely on the language run time to help free unused memory automatically. Other times, it was because the application crashed. Eventually, the program would stop, and all that memory would be freed. It was easy to forget to do that! Their application would slowly use up more and more memory, keeping long-outdated information in its registers. This is because it was up to developers to make sure that their application freed memory after they were finished using it. In years past, when the plurality of developers wrote C and C++, memory leaks were a common occurrence. When this happens, the application is likely to crash the next time it attempts to use more memory. An application which continually uses more memory without freeing any will eventually exhaust the server’s pool of memory. Even on very high-end servers, RAM is a limited resource. By memory, we’re talking about RAM, not permanent storage, like a hard drive. What is a memory leak?Ī memory leak is any portion of an application which uses memory without eventually freeing it. But all it takes is a visit to one poorly-optimized web page to discover that even a language like JavaScript can have problems with memory leaks. They’re more common in older or “closer to the metal” languages like C or C++, sure. The reality is that memory leaks can strike any application in any language. That doesn’t mean that you’re in the clear when it comes to memory leaks though. Odds are, the programming language you use doesn’t require you to allocate your own memory, or free it when you’re done. In today’s development world, memory is plentiful and usually quite fast. ( 1222 words)Īs a software developer, you might not be used to thinking about the memory usage of your applications.
ELINKS OUT OF MEMORY HOW TO
Memory leak detection - How to find, eliminate, and avoid By Eric Boersma | Posted | 6 min.
