As an optimisation, perl often doesn't completely clear lexical arrays on scope exit. It frees the elements of the array, but the block of memory it has to hold pointers to the 1E6 elements isn't freed. This is on the assumption that if you entered the block once and created a big array, you're likely to do so again. On the other hand, undef frees the pointer block too.

Dave.


In reply to Re^3: Understanding garbage collection specifics... by dave_the_m
in thread Understanding garbage collection specifics... by cLive ;-)

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