I am importing data from a COM Object into perl for processing. The data is passed in a SafeArray by reference. I have memory leak and run out of memory rapidly (a large amount of data is passed to perl). The relevant variable is: $pvarMassList. I am hoping someone can tell me how to deallocate the memory associated with $pvarmassList after I copy the data into perl. As this script runs, I can watch the memory increase in the Windows Task Manager. Any help is greatly appreciated. Thanks. 
use strict;
use Win32::OLE;
use Win32::OLE::Variant qw(:DEFAULT nothing );
Win32::OLE->Option( Warn => 3 );

# Create MSFileReader object, must have MSFileReader dll installed
my $thermo_raw_file = 
     eval{Win32::OLE->new('MSFileReader.XRawfile.1', sub{$_[0]->Close;
+})};
if($@){
  die "Could not create XRawfile object. This function requires Thermo
+ MSFileReader\n";
}

# Open raw file and set controller to first(1) mass spec device (0)
$thermo_raw_file->Open("RSK2017C.RAW");
$thermo_raw_file->SetCurrentController(0,1);

my @TempScan = ();
my $NumberOfSpectra = Win32::OLE::Variant->new(VT_I4 | VT_BYREF, 0);
$thermo_raw_file->GetNumSpectra($NumberOfSpectra);

my $scan_num;
for ($scan_num = 1; $scan_num <= $NumberOfSpectra; $scan_num++) {
  my $CurrentScanFilter = Variant(VT_BSTR | VT_BYREF);
  $thermo_raw_file->GetFilterForScanNum($scan_num, $CurrentScanFilter)
+;
  if ($CurrentScanFilter =~ m/ms /) {    
    my $pnScanNumber = Win32::OLE::Variant->new(VT_I4 | VT_BYREF, $sca
+n_num);
    my $szFilter = Win32::OLE::Variant->new(VT_BSTR | VT_BYREF);
    my $nIntensityCutoffType = Win32::OLE::Variant->new(VT_I4 | VT_BYR
+EF, 0); 
    my $nIntensityCutoffValue = Win32::OLE::Variant->new(VT_I4 | VT_BY
+REF, 0);
    my $nMaxNumberOfPeaks = Win32::OLE::Variant->new(VT_I4 | VT_BYREF,
+ 0); 
    my $bCentroidResult = Win32::OLE::Variant->new(VT_BOOL, 0); 
    my $pdCentroidPeakWidth = Win32::OLE::Variant->new(VT_R8 | VT_BYRE
+F, 0);
    my $pvarMassList = Win32::OLE::Variant->new(VT_VARIANT | VT_BYREF)
+;
    my $pvarPeakFlags = Win32::OLE::Variant->new(VT_VARIANT | VT_BYREF
+);
    my $pnArraySize = Win32::OLE::Variant->new(VT_I4 | VT_BYREF, 0);
    $thermo_raw_file->GetMassListFromScanNum($pnScanNumber, $szFilter,
+ 
       $nIntensityCutoffType, $nIntensityCutoffValue, $nMaxNumberOfPea
+ks, 
       $bCentroidResult, $pdCentroidPeakWidth, $pvarMassList, 
       $pvarPeakFlags, $pnArraySize);

    @TempScan = @{$pvarMassList->Value()};
    # undef @TempScan; does not clear memory
    # Need to deallocate $pvarMassList from memory
    # Help here!!!!
    
    print "Scan number: $scan_num Size: $#{$TempScan[0]}\n";
 }

}
Win32::OLE->Uninitialize;

print "Press any key to exit.\n";
<STDIN>;

exit;

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In reply to Memory Leak using Win32::OLE::Variant for a SafeArray passed by Reference by jwn

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