Does creating functions consume more memory

Question

// Case A
function Constructor() {
  this.foo = function() {
    ...
  };
  ...
}

// vs 
// Case B
function Constructor() {
  ...
};

Constructor.prototype.foo = fu         


        

Answer 1

Yes, creating functions uses more memory.

... and, no, interpreters don't optimize Case A down to a single function.

The reason is the JS scope chain requires each instance of a function to capture the variables available to it at the time it's created. That said, modern interpreters are better about Case A than they used to be, but largely because the performance of closure functions was a known issue a couple years ago.

Mozilla says to avoid unnecessary closures for this reason, but closures are one of the most powerful and often used tools in a JS developer's toolkit.

Update: Just ran this test that creates 1M 'instances' of Constructor, using node.js (which is V8, the JS interpreter in Chrome). With caseA = true I get this memory usage:

{
    rss: 212291584,       //212 MB
    vsize: 3279040512,    //3279 MB
    heapTotal: 203424416, //203 MB
    heapUsed: 180715856   //180 MB
}

And with caseA = false I get this memory usage:

{
    rss: 73535488,       //73 MB
    vsize: 3149352960,   //3149 MB
    heapTotal: 74908960, //74 MB
    heapUsed: 56308008   //56 MB
}

So the closure functions are definitely consuming significantly more memory, by almost 3X. But in the absolute sense, we're only talking about a difference of ~140-150 bytes per instance. (However that will likely increase depending on the number of in-scope variables you have when the function is created).

Answer 2

The javascript interpreters aren't optimizing prototype objects either. Its merely a case of there only being one of them per type (that multiple instances reference). Constructors, on the other hand, create new instances and the methods defined within them. So by definition, this really isn't an issue of interpreter 'optimization' but of simply understanding what's taking place.

On a side note, if the interpreter were to try and consolidate instance methods you would run into issues if you ever decided to change the value of one in a particular instance (I would prefer that headache not be added to the language) :)

Answer 3

I believe, after some brief testing in node, that in both Case A and B there is only one copy of the actual code for the function foo in memory.

Case A - there is a function object created for each execution of the Constructor() storing a reference to the functions code, and its current execution scope.

Case B - there is only one scope, one function object, shared via prototype.