Hi again, Been a while since my last post. I have started working heavily with Perl modules...mostly writing custom modules that utilize XML::Simple(). My question is, is there any problems and/or concerns with doing my own memory management with the custom modules? ... i.e. seting unused objects back to undef?

I come from a heavy C/C++ background...thus, there is an inherit "want" to manage this stuff explicitly...

For example...A typical module would get supplied a filename to an XML document file. Then do the following...
- Create and XML::Simple()
- Read in the document.
- Store the elements into a local hash.
- set XML::Simple() stuff = undef; # memory cleanup
A small code snippet looks like the following...

# MAIN PRORGRAM : ...
#
    else { 
        $gtheProcess = undef;
        $gtheProcess = new Registry ( 
             file => $strDir."/".$strProcess 
            ,verbose => $gblnVerbose 
        );
    } 
<snip>

# REGISTRY MODULE : new ()
#
sub new {
    my $class = shift;
    my $self  = {};
    my $theOptions = { @_ };

    ....lots of code... 
   
    if ( exists($self->{file}) ) {
        my $gxmlFile = $self->{file};
        if ( open( ghdlFile, "< $gxmlFile" ) == 1 ) {
            close ghdlFile;

            # XML : Create a new XML object...
            my $gxmlObject = XML::Simple->new();
        
            # OPEN : Open the configuration file...
            my $gxmlDocument = $gxmlObject->XMLin($gxmlFile);
        
            # CAPTURE : Grab all the configuration elements from the f
+ile...
            foreach my $lstrKey (keys (%{$gxmlDocument})) {
                $self->{$lstrKey} = $gxmlDocument->{$lstrKey};
            }  # end : foreach 

            # FREE : Free up objects...
            #
            $gxmlDocument = undef;
            $gxmlObject   = undef;

        }  # end : if ( open( cfgFH, "< $gxmlConfigFile" ) == 1 ) 

    }  #  if ( exists($self->{file}) )

    return( bless($self, $class) );

} # end : new()

[download]
Does Perl like/dislike explicit memory management by setting the above $gxmlDocument and $gxmlObject = undef?

tia,

adym

In reply to Memory Management... by alincoln

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