Common Perl memory/reference leak patterns?

Question

I\'m chasing a couple of potential memory leaks in a Perl code base and I\'d like to know about common pitfalls with regards to memory (mis-)management in Perl.

What

Answer 1

If the problem is in the Perl code, you might have a reference that points to itself, or a parent node.

Usually it comes in the form of an object, that reference a parent object.

{ package parent;
  sub new{ bless { 'name' => $_[1] }, $_[0] }
  sub add_child{
    my($self,$child_name) = @_;
    my $child = child->new($child_name,$self);
    $self->{$child_name} = $child;   # saves a reference to the child
    return $child;
  }
}
{ package child;
  sub new{
    my($class,$name,$parent) = @_;
    my $self = bless {
      'name' => $name,
      'parent' => $parent # saves a reference to the parent
    }, $class;
    return $self;
  }
}
{
  my $parent = parent->new('Dad');
  my $child  = parent->add_child('Son');

  # At this point both of these are true
  # $parent->{Son}{parent} == $parent
  # $child->{parent}{Son}  == $child

  # Both of the objects **would** be destroyed upon leaving
  # the current scope, except that the object is self-referential
}

# Both objects still exist here, but there is no way to access either of them.

The best way to fix this is to use Scalar::Util::weaken.

use Scalar::Util qw'weaken';
{ package child;
  sub new{
    my($class,$name,$parent) = @_;
    my $self = bless {
      'name' => $name,
      'parent' => $parent
    }, $class;

    weaken ${$self->{parent}};

    return $self;
  }
}

I would recommend dropping the reference to the parent object, from the child, if at all possible.