Hi Monks!
I am coming back with questions about Safe.pm and memory handling, after reviewing the following messages:

1. 'Displaying symbol tables for debugging' - and getting the symbol2 and packages subroutines from it.
2. 'undef Package;' (156281) - and using Symbol delete_package subroutine.

So I created a small script checking using the information gathered.
The script uses Symbol.pm and Safe.pm, and include symbol2 and packages subroutines.
All it does is execute a Perl script that uses a module (big module), and check the memory consumption.
The script:

use Safe;
use Symbol qw(delete_package);
use Data::Dumper;
use strict;
my $rc = 0;
my $namespace = "SPACE";

my $CPT = new Safe($namespace);

$CPT->deny_only();

my $file = shift;

print "DEBUG - before rdo-\n";
system ("ps auxww|grep safe|grep -v grep");
print "-"x40,"\n";
<>;

if (-f $file) {
    $CPT->rdo($file);
} else {
    print "File \"$file\" does not exists !\n";
    $rc = 1;
}

print "DEBUG - after rdo-\n";

print $@ if (defined $@);

print "Printing \%SPACE::\n";
print Dumper \%SPACE::;

print "Printing \%SPACE::INC\n";
print Dumper \%SPACE::INC;

print "\nOutput from space_packages\n";
space_packages();

print "\nOutput from packages\n";
packages();

print "\nOutput from symbols2\n";
symbols2("SPACE");

system ("ps auxww|grep safe|grep -v grep");
print "-"x40,"\n";
<>;

delete_package($namespace);

print "DEBUG - after clearing namespace-\n";

print "Printing \%SPACE::\n";
print Dumper \%SPACE::;

print "Printing \%SPACE::INC\n";
print Dumper \%SPACE::INC;

print "\nOutput from space_packages\n";
space_packages();

print "\nOutput from packages\n";
packages();

print "\nOutput from symbols2\n";
symbols2("SPACE");

system ("ps auxww|grep safe|grep -v grep");
print "-"x40,"\n";
<>;

sub space_packages {
  print "Packages: ", join(" ", grep /::$/, keys %SPACE::), "\n";
  print "  INC: ", join(" ", sort keys %SPACE::INC), "\n";
}

sub packages {
  print "Packages: ", join(" ", grep /::$/, keys %::), "\n";
  print "  INC: ", join(" ", sort keys %INC), "\n";
}


sub symbols2 {
  my $pkg = $_[0] || '';
  no strict 'refs';
  print "Symbols in ${pkg}::\n";
  my $hash = *{$pkg.'::'}{HASH};
  for (sort grep {!/::$|^_</} keys %$hash) {
    my $sym = $_;
    my $glob = $hash->{$_};
    $sym =~ s/[[:cntrl:]]/'^' . chr(ord($&) + ord('@'))/ge;
    print "  $sym (", *{$glob}{PACKAGE}, '::', *{$glob}{NAME}, "): ";
    if (defined $$_) {
      print "SCALAR='$$glob' ";
    };
    for my $THING (qw(ARRAY HASH CODE IO)) {
      my $ref = *{$glob}{$THING};
      if (defined $ref) {
        print "$THING=$ref ";
      }
    }
    print "\n";
  }
}
[download]

The output (executed on Linux RH 7.3 with Perl 5.6.1):

[root@gili /tmp]# perl safe.pl /tmp/safe2.pl
DEBUG - before rdo-
root     31983  0.0  1.6  3504 2068 pts/0    S    06:26   0:00 perl sa
+fe.pl /tmp/safe2.pl
----------------------------------------

DEBUG - loading module momo-
test
DEBUG - after rdo-
Printing %SPACE::
$VAR1 = {
          'INC' => *SPACE::INC,
          '_' => *::_,
          'a' => *SPACE::a,
          '_</tmp/safe2.pl' => *{'SPACE::_</tmp/safe2.pl'},
          '__ANON__' => *SPACE::__ANON__,
          'test' => *SPACE::test,
          'momo::' => *{'SPACE::momo::'},
          '_<momo.pm' => *{'SPACE::_<momo.pm'},
          'BEGIN' => *SPACE::BEGIN,
          'main::' => *{'SPACE::main::'}
        };
Printing %SPACE::INC
$VAR1 = {
          'momo.pm' => 'momo.pm',
          '/tmp/safe2.pl' => '/tmp/safe2.pl'
        };

Output from space_packages
Packages: momo:: main::
  INC: /tmp/safe2.pl momo.pm

Output from packages
Packages: SPACE:: Opcode:: DB:: Data:: DynaLoader:: Exporter:: warning
+s:: Symbol:: strict:: XSLoader:: attributes:: UNIVERSAL:: overload:: 
+<none>:: Safe:: subs:: IO:: Carp:: CORE:: main::
  INC: Carp.pm Data/Dumper.pm Exporter.pm Exporter/Heavy.pm Opcode.pm 
+Safe.pm Symbol.pm XSLoader.pm overload.pm strict.pm subs.pm warnings.
+pm warnings/register.pm

Output from symbols2
Symbols in SPACE::
  BEGIN (SPACE::BEGIN): 
  INC (SPACE::INC): HASH=HASH(0x81945d8) 
  _ (SPACE::_): SCALAR='_' ARRAY=ARRAY(0x819e1c8) 
  __ANON__ (SPACE::__ANON__): 
  a (SPACE::a): 
  test (SPACE::test): CODE=CODE(0x819b320) 
root     31983 13.0  2.4  4500 3068 pts/0    S    06:26   0:00 perl sa
+fe.pl /tmp/safe2.pl
----------------------------------------

DEBUG - after clearing namespace-
Printing %SPACE::
$VAR1 = {};
Printing %SPACE::INC
$VAR1 = {};

Output from space_packages
Packages: 
  INC: 

Output from packages
Packages: Opcode:: DB:: Data:: DynaLoader:: Exporter:: warnings:: Symb
+ol:: strict:: XSLoader:: attributes:: UNIVERSAL:: overload:: <none>::
+ Safe:: subs:: IO:: Carp:: CORE:: main::
  INC: Carp.pm Data/Dumper.pm Exporter.pm Exporter/Heavy.pm Opcode.pm 
+Safe.pm Symbol.pm XSLoader.pm overload.pm strict.pm subs.pm warnings.
+pm warnings/register.pm

Output from symbols2
Symbols in SPACE::
root     31983  0.8  2.4  4500 3068 pts/0    S    06:26   0:00 perl sa
+fe.pl /tmp/safe2.pl
----------------------------------------
[download]

What can we see here ?

• The delete_package seems to work.
• BUT - the memory consumption does not getting low.

Any suggestions, except "fork" ?

Thanks,
shushu