Perl never hands memory back to the operating system. It's not Perl's fault, it's the way memory works in most modern operating systems. When Perl reaps an object, the memory is free for Perl to use again, but not free for Excel or XFree to use until Perl exits.
Some day we'll manage to stomp this particular meme out, as it's based on a misfeature originally wired into Unix, one that has been fixed for quite a number of years for most versions. Modern operating systems do give memory back to the system, and older operating systems (Unix, remember, is 33 -- hardly modern) with recent versions generally do as well.

In reply to Re: Re: Hash Entry Deallocation by Elian
in thread Hash Entry Deallocation by Pearte

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